


between the devil and the deep blue sea

by sphinxofthenile



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Asphyxiation, Blood and Injury, Blow Jobs, Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Drug Use, Family Drama, Gun Kink, Hand Jobs, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mild D/s, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rough Sex, Swearing, Unresolved Sexual Tension, communism is alive and well, fixing Steven's bullshit, s1 Tommy is the best Tommy, that later gets resolved, you'll pry him from my cold dead hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:00:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24706486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sphinxofthenile/pseuds/sphinxofthenile
Summary: "This is what's going to happen," Tommy says, cigarette dangling from his lips, so goddamn assured that everything will go his way just because he wills it, and Alfie just wants to punch him in his perfect fucking mouth.
Relationships: James/Tommy Shelby, Michael Gray/Isaiah Jesus, Tommy Shelby/Alfie Solomons
Comments: 32
Kudos: 188





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> I just wanted to write a fic where Tommy seduces Alfie to get his way. Then the blasted thing grew limbs and ran away from me. Or in the eternal words of radiationsickness, "I love it how this went from Tommy manipulating Alfie into fucking him to daddy dom Solomons taking care of a dumbass." That's it. That's the fic.
> 
> Follows seasons 1-3, with the altered premise that Grace never came back from America to become a fridged trophy wife.

_"He'll wrap you in his arms_

_Tell you that you've been a good boy_

_He'll rekindle all the dreams_

_It took you a lifetime to destroy."_

_Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Red Right Hand _

\---

"You certain about this, Tommy?" Charlie asks him, his forehead creased with worry, and Tommy remembers being six with a scraped knee and a split lip, sitting on a bale of hay that smelled like summer and smoke. Biting the inside of his mouth at the burn of whiskey dabbed on his wounds by rough but careful hands, and wishing Charlie was his father.

The bay in the stall gives a long snort and rubs her soft muzzle against his neck. "Easy, girl," he runs a hand over her withers instead of answering because the truth he could say is harsher than what Charlie deserves and the lies that come to mind would hurt so much more. So he leans down and checks her hooves instead, painfully aware that the man regarding him warily from across the stall has taught him how to do it. 

Horses are easy and he's always been good with them, strong hands and a gentle voice, because deep down, they want to bend, want to be reassured. He's been with them a lot, in France. Their smell reminded him of home and their fear tasted like acid, like his own. They had kind eyes and pressed their heads into his hand, greeting him with soft puffs of breath. 

But sometimes, sometimes they were worse, needed more, like the stallion at Ypres, big draft horse half-feral with shell shock and mange. Tommy watched him as he moved across the camp, and his feet carried him back when it was dark. He'd sat on the edge of the water through and talked and talked until the horse knew his voice, until it let him close, until Tommy could offer him his open palms.

He was there when a shell hit the stables. He rarely cried before, and never after. War was unforgiving to all, and horses died badly and died often, but blinkers on they allowed themselves to be led into ankle-deep mud and gunfire, with strong hands and a gentle voice.

Tommy runs his palm down the neck of the bay and wishes he could press his face against her neck and just listen to her breathe. He pats her flank instead and thinks about the telegram from Camden Town on his desk. 

Let us break bread together. 

_That Jew, Solomons,_ Danny's voice rings in his ears like a dirge, cuts him at the knees still, a man that could've been any of them but was all of them instead, a mirror and a reminder. _They say he offers a deal or death, Tommy. Say he was a Captain. In France. Say he's barking mad, he is._

It's been too long since Tommy visited Danny's grave. Eight months? More? He always pours a bit of whiskey on the ground and leaves with the taste of failure on his tongue. They are all his now, to protect and to hold up, and Charlie shouldn't worry about it, he really _shouldn't_ , because it's all Tommy's now, isn't it? Sometimes when the opium unhooks the steel wires his mind is secured with, Tommy wonders if his father ever felt the same way. 

The bay shifts under his touch and Tommy lets his hands fall to his side. Horses are easy, but betting on the wrong one can still ruin a man, and Tommy finally looks at Charlie over the curve of her back, unblinking. "Only death is certain."

\---

Curly makes tea and covers him again when Tommy kicks off the blankets, puts the oil they use on the lame horses on Tommy's skin every six hours and his touch feels like hot irons. Tommy hisses through his teeth, bites his tongue raw and takes it, and when he cannot take it anymore he thinks about Campbell and the jab of his cane against his shoulder and lets Curly finish his work. The black powder is bitter at the back of his throat and his stomach is too empty not to roil from it, but the boat rocks gently and Tommy drifts with it, hair plastered to his face with sweat and chills wracking his body. 

Campbell surely knows by now that he's left the hospital, probably sent his men to watch the roads, but on the boat traversing the winding waterways, he is safe. It's dark inside the cabin and time seems to stand still as he lies on the makeshift cot, his ears ringing with blasts and his vision swimming, the taste of copper and soil on his lips that not even whiskey seems to wash out completely these days. Blood pools under the bodies of the dead and screams pour from the dying, and somewhere deep down Tommy knows he's still on the boat with Curly, but the dreams are more familiar than his own face by now, rising on the current of his fever. 

He pushes himself upright, blinks against the light, against nausea swirling in his guts, and feels a hand on his calf. "Danny?" he asks, smears the blood on his face that is not there with the back of his hand. His eyes won't focus and his breath comes in short, labored gasps. 

"176 is gone to a man. Shell collapsed their tunnel," Danny looks at him, wide-eyed and pale, steadies him as Tommy retches bile onto the ground. "Tommy--"

"It's alright, Danny," Tommy mutters. "We chose this."

But the thing about war is that you don't get to choose. Not your battles and not your orders, not your weapons or your officers. Not when to eat or sleep, not what to wear or say. You don't get to decide if the next day brings trench foot or a letter from home. If you die cleanly with a bullet through your head or after hours of screaming as your lungs are dissolved by gas. 

The only thing you get to decide is the song you sing in the darkness between the shells and the fire and the prayer you choke on before you close your eyes hoping for just another day in a living hell. But there is no singing in the tunnels, and Thomas Shelby hasn't prayed since his mother worked herself into an early grave trying to support a family without a man.

He fumbles for the tin mug with water and somehow manages not to drop it, water running down the corners of his mouth, and he coughs as some of it goes the wrong way. He wipes his mouth and wonders when they will reach London, before he falls down on his back once again, mug clattering away from his lax fingers.

"Tommy? Christ, _Tommy_!" Freddie's voice seems to come from far away, and Tommy remembers this, it's the Somme and he's been shot, and Freddie keeps lying beside him, pressing both his palms over the entry point. He tries to say that he will be fine, but his mouth is full of blood and Freddie just shakes his head with that exasperated look of his. "For fuck's sake, Tommy, you want to sell a lame horse to a Jew," Freddie laughs against his cheek like a storm rattling the tarps, and Tommy jolts awake with a wheezing breath and his fever broken. 

\---

Bloody hell. Alfie knows his vices, like the right God-fearing man he is, but now that, that's just fucking _unfair_. He's not quite sure what he expected-- well, no, that's actually a lie, isn't it? A mad dog with his gypsy magic, Ezra had said between sips of that spiced coffee that he keeps drinking even though he knows it makes Alfie's nose twitch. And that is exactly what he expected, ruffles and gold and perhaps a goat or a fucking tambourine because he's not quite down to the level where he would give a free pass to someone trying to charm him with a pack of tarot cards, and has let Ezra know as much.

What he gets is a little fox, the kind that spoils the vineyards, with his slick hair and bruised face and the hubris and sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. His fancy suit is so new, so pristine, the shirt so white Alfie could swear it's never been washed, but he wears it well and doesn't shy away from the dirt of the distillery. Doesn't splutter at the taste of rum and doesn't even blink at Alfie's affronted tone, nor rises to his taunts. Doesn't accept his whiskey and isn't afraid to insult Alfie to his face in his own fucking bakery, and how about that.

"You were in the war?" Alfie asks even though he knows the answer already, and Tommy Shelby's silence calls him out on the fact. Alfie pulls the drawer again, just to feel its weight, to draw attention to it. But instead of getting anything out he rather tells the story of the Italian soldier. It's a good one, and he likes telling it, it tends to settle what is what. It usually also convinces everyone that he's absolutely mad, and madness, Alfie finds, has its very own kind of power.

The story is almost entirely true too. He tends to leave out the bit where he is responsible for the nail but it's Isaac holding the duckboard because they have been ambushed with a stretcher in hand and no time to pull out any actual weapons. The man they were trying to save still bled out half an hour later, calling for his mother in a faint voice. Couldn't have been more than eighteen. And Alfie has certainly never told a soul about how Isaac got a bullet in his stomach at Verdun, screaming and screaming until the men decided to draw straws for putting him out of his misery. How Alfie pulled rank and did it himself, wrote dear Frances a letter full of pretty lies and old platitudes. 

But Tommy fucking Shelby, he's an unusual sort, Alfie will grant that much. He talks all smooth and level, and goddammit, he's _good_ , isn't he, that son of a whore, all reason and facts, and that low, deep voice with that bloody accent. He talks about a solution, but what he really means is a compromise, an obligation, a debt. Makes Alfie's palms itch and the skin prick at the back of his neck, the fury of it gathering beneath his skin like a storm waiting to break.

Like any right God-fearing man, Alfie knows that the tests of a man are endless and the worst temptation comes in your hour of need. But one is not always a sin, and this war isn't over until he says it is.

\---

When Tommy was twelve, he saw an _ursari_ and his dancing bear. His father came home with a wide smile and expensive sweets in his pocket, and when their mother complained they didn't have firewood he sent her out with a few notes he swindled off some simpleton or perhaps borrowed from someone who would never see him again. Then he packed the three boys on a cart and they went down to the horse fair in Appleby, to be dazzled by the endless swirl of bright colors and laughter and caravans and more horses than Tommy has ever seen.

Their father disappeared in the crowd to get drunk and chase easy fortunes, and didn't show again. By the time Tommy found the Lees, it was night, and Johnny's grandfather, old man Maloney flashed them a wide, sad smile full of gold teeth and took them home to Small Heath. Their father reappeared three days later, still drunk and penniless, and not at all perturbed by any of it.

Alfie Solomons reminds him of that bear with its powerful, looming frame and seemingly sluggish movements. The man is a right bastard, but he is also _different_ , with his volatile temper, mercurial theatrics and undeniable presence. Used to be an officer, Danny had said. Does have that sense of power. Authority. The air of a man who expects to be obeyed without question, to be listened to without interruption, an easiness to his violence that sparks and catches. 

War changes men in a thousand little ways. Swallows them down and spits them back up like mock-ups of the real thing, the stitches wide and rough, the edges undone and fraying. Tommy has seen it, and he can tell how much the man in front of him is in control of all this, of himself. His hand is steady, his eyes are sharp and clear, his breathing even as he points his gun at Tommy.

For half a second the world tilts before it settles again. For a moment Tommy thinks he can smell blood, can taste it in the back of his throat. His joints are stiff and aching, and suddenly all he can think about is how much he wants a drink. A strange feeling spreads low in his belly that is not dread, hot and uncomfortable, and Tommy resists the urge to swallow, rubs his tongue against the roof of his mouth instead.

Alfie Solomons is neither a madman nor a fool, and he is all the more dangerous for it.

He cocks the gun and Tommy's heart beats almost painfully against his ribs. This time he can feel the blood before he smells it, a thin line of it running from his nose over his upper lip, and just like that, the tension snaps and Alfie Solomons fucking _smiles_ , all of a sudden looking years younger and like a different man, like an echo of the past where he didn't yet know how to hold a gun like that. It makes Tommy feel weary beyond words, makes the pain sharper, the sinking feeling in his guts heavier.

"Mr. Solomons--"

"Nah, mate, Alfie's fine, we're in business now, aren't we? Might you be wanting that whiskey now?" Solomons frowns at him, and Tommy's jaw clenches.

"Alright," he clears his throat and watches as the bottle is pulled out again and a generous amount is spilled into a glass with a loud splash.

Doing business with Alfie Solomons might just be tempting fate, might just prove the end of him, but without London, there can be no legitimate business, and without it, the Shelby fortune is built on quicksand. For now, they are allies, however unlikely, and if the unusual cadence of the man's voice keeps ringing in his ear long after he's gone, Tommy is quick to ignore it.

\---

"This is what's going to happen," Tommy says, cigarette dangling from his lips, so goddamn assured that everything will go his way just because he wills it, and Alfie just wants to punch him in his perfect fucking mouth. And it's ridiculous, isn't it, but then everything about Tommy Shelby is, from his well-tailored suit to his bloody accent and complete lack of self-preservation. The nerve of that backwater country _upstart_ , bossing him around in his own bakery, and no, Alfie decidedly doesn't care that Tommy _has_ delivered his hundred men.

There is very little separating an army from an armed mob, so the next order of business is to sort them out, set some boundaries, make sure they all know what is what and where they all stand in this bizarre shared operation. If Alfie has to start with Tommy, then that is exactly what he's going to do.

"Yeah?" Alfie cocks his head, twirls the ring on his index finger. "Fuck that, mate," he plucks the cigarette from Tommy's mouth in one move, keeps their eyes locked as he puts it out on the tabletop, the glowing tip burning into the wood so close to the soft skin between Tommy's thumb and forefinger that Alfie _knows_ he must be feeling it.

Tommy just holds his gaze and doesn't even flinch. It only sets Alfie's teeth on edge, and he leans back with an almost apologetic smile.

"You hold onto that thought," he wiggles his fingers in Tommy's general direction. "You see, Tommy, bakery this size, we got good batches and bad batches. You got a bad batch, then you got a bad batch, nothing to it, hmm?" Alfie leans forward, clasps his hands together. "Now I get it, mate, I really do. You get out there, you say your piece. It's only fair, innit? First idiot to backtalk, I'll deal with him."

"And if there's none?" Tommy asks and Alfie rolls his eyes because now he's just being difficult.

"A hundred men and none of them an imbecile? That'd be the bloody day," he snorts. "Deal?"

"Deal," Tommy finally says with a slow blink, something shifting behind his flawless mask of a face, something sharp and deep, and Alfie swallows back a black curse at the thought that Tommy Shelby is a stupidly beautiful man, in the hard and unnatural way that cut diamonds are beautiful, a cold brilliance beneath the facets that shifts with the angle of light and pulls men to their deaths.

\---

Tommy takes a long drag of his cigarette and follows the men out of the storeroom, drags a hand across his mouth when he's sure that no one can see him. Well, _fuck_. He is no stranger to violence, and yet Alfie Solomons knocking out a man's teeth makes his stomach twist, makes his mouth run dry and his throat close up. 

His wrath is something else, fierce and overwhelming, leaves Tommy almost dizzy, makes him think he understands it, the twisting fury of someone who had to work twice as hard for everything and never got half the recognition, who will carve himself a way where the world doesn't offer one. He is no stranger to it himself.

Alfie is already sitting behind his desk again, studying the papers spread across it, and only spares a cursory glance when Tommy enters and takes a seat. He's perfectly composed as if nothing has happened, but there is a speck of blood high on his collar, and Tommy just keeps thinking about it, the outline of Alfie's arm through his shirt as he struck, his raised voice, the way he stared down Billy Kitchen even though the man is actually a head taller. 

They should've ripped him apart and instead, he tamed them to his hand. Heat coils in Tommy's belly, hot and clawing like hunger, and it strikes him with sudden clarity what it all really _means_.

"What?" Alfie looks at him over the rim of his glasses that should look ridiculous on his face but only serve to contrast his shrewd look with the broad expanse of his shoulders, and Tommy realizes with a start that he's been staring.

"Nothing," he says around the butt of his cigarette and ignores the long look Alfie gives him. "All sorted then?"

"Believe so. Yeah," Alfie traces a column of numbers with a fingertip and Tommy looks away.

"I'll see you at the warehouse. Friday."

Alfie just makes a vague hum and waves three fingers at him, scribbling something into a ledger, so Tommy stubs out the cigarette and goes.

He gets into the car and tips his head back with a groan, listens to the light drizzle of rain on the hood. Charlie might've been right after all, maybe it's really time he went and rode a horse again, like he used to when things were still simple.

\---

Tommy stares at the ceiling with shaking hands and clammy skin, breathes in the opium, and exhales jarring pieces of himself. It feels like he's sinking slowly, adrift in the flow of his own memories, but their pain and anxiety is distant, like an old photograph of familiar faces.

Campbell thinks to corral him into a smaller and smaller space until he gets used to it, until he is ready to bend or be broken. Thinks himself clever, thinks to play him. But Tommy can see the trap at the end of it. His mother raised no fool. There is nothing waiting for him there but betrayal and the noose, damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.

Still, he has no option but to go along with it. It's a lot like the tunnels, insidious and suffocating, like he can hear the creak of the rough wooden ladder on his descent with every step he dances to Campbell's tune. He can feel everything he's built slip through his fingers, can taste bromide and gunpowder in the back of his throat, and the drum of the picks beats against his temple like wild horses, like machine gun fire.

Then there is London, and Tommy feels like banging his head against something, because of course it just had to go to shit like everything always seems to, and he's just so _tired_ , but if he doesn't find a solution he will have another war on his hands. The telegram on his desk is clear, Solomons and Sabini have agreed to a meeting, and Tommy has to act fast or watch everything fall to pieces.

Briefly, he considers warning Arthur about Solomons, about Sabini. But he knows he won't do it even as he thinks it, because right now their only advantage is the element of surprise, and Tommy can still salvage this somehow, can still find a way simply because he must.

God damn the whole thing, and god damn Alfie Solomons, because just thinking about him makes Tommy's mouth dry, makes him think about the strength coiled in that broad frame, the things those hands could do to him. It makes him feel raw and exposed, fills his cock with blood until he's half-hard with it, and _fuck_ he's not wanted like that in a long time, perhaps ever, so sharply, so viscerally.

He thought that being with May might do it, help him put the matter to rest, sate that bloody _craving_ inside him. And it was nice, it really was, but it also did none of those things, and Tommy presses his face into his pillow and ignores the want that sits low in his guts.

By the time the picks fall silent with the morning light, he has a plan.

\---

"You're in some fucking luck, mate, that I was just passing around here. Now you've got five fucking minutes to say your piece," Alfie grumbles as he descends the stairs. The bloody nerve of Tommy Shelby, calling him to a meeting at the tracks like this, like Alfie has nothing better to do. Especially after everything the bastard pulled. Alfie is half tempted to just shoot him in the face after all.

"Mr. Solomons," Tommy nods a greeting and Alfie makes a show of pulling out his watch and glancing at it.

"Yeah, yeah, fucking get on with it, will you."

"I know about Sabini," Tommy says, direct as a headshot, and Alfie almost rolls his eyes before the irritation settles beneath his skin. Smoking out rats is always tedious, and with Tommy's men crawling all over his businesses might be inevitably futile. There, you let one fucking gypsy through your door and before you blink they are crawling in through the chimnies as well. "I want you to take his deal."

Yeah, like Alfie is fucking falling for that. "What fucking deal."

"I know you're meeting him. In the bakery. Tomorrow," Tommy offers evenly, a measured look in his wide blue eyes that makes Alfie's fingers twitch. His fist is itching to connect with Tommy's jaw and some primitive part of his brain is screaming caution even as he crowds Tommy against the railing, taps the cane against his chest, their faces almost close enough to touch. 

"Yeah, thing is, Tommy, I was thinking about inviting you, cause I'm all about discussion, right. Friendship. Friendship is very important, you see. All those clubs and wharves and never an invitation from you, though. Now that hurts," Alfie places a hand on his heart for emphasis. 

"I need to settle a debt," Tommy ignores him completely, blowing smoke into the dull morning air that tastes of rain and smells like horses, "and I need to be seen backed into a corner."

"Is that what you want? Me to back you into a corner, Tommy? Cause I can do that, you know, I can bloody well do that," Alfie rants, but he watches Tommy through narrowed eyes. The man is inscrutable as usual, but his throat moves in a long swallow as he holds Alfie's gaze.

Tommy flicks his thumb against the butt of his cigarette and says nothing. 

Alfie hums and strokes two fingers down his beard and his jaw moves soundlessly as he works this specific piece of the puzzle into the picture that is one Tommy Shelby. And what a picture it is indeed. If Alfie has spilled his seed in vain over the image of those lips around his cock, now that is between his God and himself alone.

"So what is it you want?" he finally asks.

"No dead, no permanent injuries."

"And what's in it for me?" 

"Whatever Sabini offers you tomorrow," Tommy announces with such foolish confidence, Alfie just has to laugh. "I'm going to take him down," he adds and he really does mean it, and Alfie makes an inexcusable snort.

"Yeah, right, good fucking luck with that, mate." 

\---

Alfie Solomons takes Sabini's deal. No matter what happens and who comes out on top, he has only to gain after all. But he's _vicious_ about it, bad blood not yet forgotten or forgiven, trampling all over their shared operations with Tommy like a herd of colts in a sprouting field of wheat. Makes it _personal_ , the bastard. 

But that was a gamble Tommy took when he put that particular loaded gun in Alfie's hand. Arthur might be in prison and Billy Kitchen in a hospital, but the deal has been honored, and what really matters is that Sabini is complacent as a well-fucked woman and Campbell too busy gloating to take a closer look at London.

Arthur would punch Tommy in the face if he only bloody knew, and rightfully so, all things considered. Arthur would punch him in the face for many things, including what he is about to do now, even though he _is_ doing it for Arthur.

Then again, Alfie Solomons might just beat Arthur to it. Something almost like a shudder runs through Tommy at the memory of the warehouse, how the man had looked standing there dressed in nothing but a shirt and his own brand of madness, bringing down his cane on some poor bloke's face like a flaming sword on judgment day.

The violence in Alfie is what part of him recognizes, the part he's pushed down deep and steeped in opium, but it is there, always, and nothing he does will ever bury it deep enough. 

It is the part of him that wishes Alfie would.

"This way," he says and James follows. For a moment Tommy wishes it could be some other way, that he didn't have to drag that boy into this, but his business in London has to be concluded and fast. Everything hangs by a thread, and there's been too much damage already. "Just do exactly what I told you, and everything will be fine."

With a deep breath of smoke, Tommy slips his right hand into his pocket and closes it around the reassuring weight of the grenade pin.

\---

Alfie Solomons gets that unsettling wide-eyed look when he is truly angry. Like now, as he grabs Ollie like a kitten and damn near shakes him like one too, like he weighs nothing, means nothing. There is a bright red mark forming on the lad's pale face where that large hand struck him.

It makes Tommy's nerves come alive with a thrill that has nothing to do with how high strung he is on adrenaline at the moment. His teeth clench around the sound clawing its way up his throat and he desperately wants to light a smoke, but he doesn't trust his own hands not to shake.

Then Alfie sits back behind his desk like nothing happened, and the intelligence in his eyes is in such stark contrast to his brute power that Tommy feels his jaw clench despite himself. It's fucking ridiculous that with so much at stake he should be focusing on such a thing, and yet. And _yet_.

Alfie doesn't believe him. But he doesn't have to, because Alfie Solomons is no gambling man. He's all about numbers and Tommy knows his odds. Then again, behind that sharp calculating gaze the Jewish bastard looks almost honestly delighted by being outmaneuvered, and well, fuck if that doesn't get to Tommy in ways he will never acknowledge.

Digging his way out has never felt like he's actually digging himself deeper, and even as they shake on the deal and Tommy finally walks away, he cannot help feeling that he's left something unfinished behind, like a question that needs answering. 

\---

"Where the hell have you been?" Ada yells at them in the doorway.

"Ada, it's a secret," James groans at her, rolling his eyes good-naturedly.

"I didn't get him killed," Tommy adds more steadily than he really feels. His hands aren't trembling anymore, but there is still a mad rush in his blood, a buzz in the back of his head like static. Ada knows. He can tell.

"Not for a lack of trying, I bet," she snaps at him, but there is concern in her eyes. Then she takes a deep breath and presses her mouth into a stubborn line. "I'm going to the union meeting. Mrs. Hall looks after Karl for me. You staying? Actually, nevermind. Just lock up properly if you go out." She doesn't slam the door, but it's a close thing, leaving the two of them standing in the hallway.

"Care for some tea?" James offers. He has that look in his eyes again, appreciation and a hint of lust, and Tommy clears his throat.

"I have to go. Thank you for your help."

"Or since you are in a hurry, we could just be very quick," James raises an eyebrow.

"Bold," Tommy blinks, sizes him up through his lashes. This is a terrible idea, no question about it, but his blood is still running hot, and James is _offering_ , and perhaps this is what he's missing, the hard angles of a man beneath his hands, and maybe this time, it would be enough. It _has_ to be enough.

"Ada is a good judge of character," James smiles with a little shrug. Despite his confidence, he licks his lips a little nervously. 

"She really is," Tommy agrees before pressing their bodies together, hard up against the wall. James is taller than he is, but he has a very nice neck that Tommy can put his mouth on while they fumble with suspenders and buttons. Tommy spits into his hand and slides it into James' underwear and around his cock. He's already getting hard and Tommy jerks him rough and fast, adds a bit more spit for an easier slide.

James uses that momentary break to get his own hand on Tommy's cock, picks up his rhythm, and it's really _good_ , but it's also not right, not what he _needs_ , and Tommy bites his lower lip in frustration. 

James tries to kiss his frown away, sweet, kind, and Tommy feels guilt welling up inside like acid. So he kisses him back, slows his hand a little, strokes his jawline with a thumb and swallows the sounds James makes as he comes over Tommy's fingers.

By the time Tommy ruins a handkerchief wiping his hand clean, James is coming down from his high with a lazy grin and a glint in his eye.

"Let me," he whispers and gets on his knees with more grace than his lanky frame would suggest, and Tommy's throat closes up at the look in his eyes. He makes a low moan when James flicks his tongue against the sensitive area just under the head, and his eyes fall closed when James swallows him down.

It doesn't take long, tension building at the base of his spine, the static in his head overwhelming his thoughts, his own desperate sounds, and Tommy bites the palm of his hand that still smells like sex and come, thinks about Alfie's hand leaving a throbbing red mark on his cheek, rings heavy against his face, and comes with a drawn out cry.

\---

"The fuck is it now?" Alfie rubs his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. It's the middle of the bloody night, for fuck's sake, and dealing with the sudden cash flow from Tommy Shelby's thirty-five percent is giving him a bloody headache. 

Hiram steps inside, takes a glance at the untouched plate of pickled herring and chrain that is balanced precariously on a stack of papers shoved onto the one empty chair and opts for standing. "Apologies, Mr. Solomons. I was just thinking--"

"Now look at that, he's now getting paid to think," Alfie mutters into his beard, but Hiram knows him too well to look concerned. "Now pray tell us why you are standing in my office at this ungodly hour so I can tell you to get the fuck out."

"There is light in the warehouse, Mr. Solomons. Car parked out front," Hiram spreads his hands like he's apologizing for the mere fact.

"Tommy, Tommy, Tommy," Alfie scratches his chin. After everything that went down at the derby earlier that day, the wily bastard should be drowning in booze and triumph in his rat hole of a pub. But of course not. Up to no good already, is he.

"One of his, aye."

"Fuck," Alfie tips his head back and stares at the ceiling for a long moment before he stands and takes his coat. "Come now, Hiram, you're not Lot's fucking wife, are you, and I have places to be. My back's getting a crick in here."

\---

"Come to kill me, Alfie?" Tommy keeps his gun raised, and Alfie holds out his hands in a placating gesture. "Get your missing percentage?" He looks sharp even without his jacket, but his eyes are a little glassy and his hair mussed like he's been running his fingers through it. There is a half-empty bottle on the desk next to him. More like two thirds, really.

"Kill you?" Alfie echoes with a disgusted frown. "You fucking insane, Tommy? Here I am, just passing by, thinking to myself I'd do the right fucking thing, be a good neighbour, yeah? It's in the fucking scripture, mate."

"Right," Tommy keeps staring at him. His grip seems a little unstable, and Alfie has to wonder what's happened, because Tommy should be celebrating, but instead he looks haunted, his aloof calmness in tatters. It shouldn't spark Alfie's hunger like that, to see him undone, broken open like that, but there it is regardless.

Alfie steps closer and eases himself into one of the chairs opposite the desk, stretches out his legs with a groan. "Yeah, so you mind showing some bloody hospitality, Tommy? Cause now that, that's just fucking rude, innit?"

"Take a seat, why don't you," Tommy arches an eyebrow at him with a wry curl of his lips and a magnanimous hand gesture. The gun lands loudly on the surface of the desk, nearly clatters right off it as Tommy picks up the bottle instead, and the realization hits Alfie like a gut punch that Tommy Shelby is just completely fucking _wasted_.

\---

"--and really, who the fuck puts that shit in a birdbath, yeah?" Alfie rants, and Tommy is not even sure what they are even discussing at this point or how they even got here.

He almost died. Worse, he achieved everything he set out to do, Campbell dead, Sabini defeated, and yet he remains a puppet on a string, to a man he doesn't know in a play he doesn't care about. He didn't choose this, he didn't, and it chafes like the yoke it is, burns like a brand.

"Never asked where you served," he lights another cigarette. His throat is getting scratchy and there is pressure building at the base of his skull, and he just knows he's going to have a headache from hell, but right now he cannot sit there without giving his hands something to do. 

"Never said I did," Alfie gives him a look that is somehow both cautious and curious. 

"Didn't have to," Tommy blows the smoke towards the ceiling and watches it swirl in the pale light seeping in from outside. It's not quite dawn yet, but soon will be. He hasn't even noticed.

"Stretcher company. Why?" Alfie looks awake, a little wary but oddly comfortable, and for some reason he still hasn't left. Tommy is not quite sure what to make of it, but it keeps him from getting lost in his own head, and maybe that's enough.

Tommy shrugs and takes another drag because he cannot ask the real questions, the ones that actually matter. He shouldn't have even mentioned the bloody war. He shouldn't even be here.

"Well we've had ourselves a nice little chat, haven't we. I figure we better head home, mate," Alfie seems to pick up on his train of thought with uncanny ease. At any other time, it might be alarming. Right now, Tommy is willing to concede that Alfie Solomons might be right. What a bloody strange night indeed.

\---

The corridor to the side entrance is musty, narrow and dark, and the only thing keeping Tommy upright is Alfie's forearm propping him up against the peeling wall. Tommy is going to have words with Georgie first thing in the morning about broken light fixtures and goddamn paint cans left lying around in the dark. Well, later in the morning anyway.

Now if he could only _breathe_. But he's suddenly all too aware of the way Alfie's shoulders fill the space, of the metallic taste in the back of his own throat as he swallows, and at that moment it hits Tommy like lightning that they are close enough that he can _smell_ Alfie, moonshine and lye soap and smoke and skin. It shouldn't make a difference, but it does, arousal piercing him like a thorn, vicious and barbed and intoxicating.

"You alright?" Alfie asks and all Tommy can see is the white, wet glint of his teeth, and he's distantly aware that he should say something, but his throat won't obey him. The silence stretches between them sticky and slow, and Tommy wants nothing more than to stay just another minute, and it's desperate and selfish and completely irrational.

"Yeah. Yeah, fine." He finally says, even as he only can, smooths down his coat and walks out into the brisk morning air of London, so vast and alien, the cold wind soothing against his face.

\---

"Ollie! Ey, Ollie, you miserable dimwit!" Alfie bellows half a step into the bakery, and everybody immediately finds something terribly important to do, trying to look small and inconspicuous. Ollie practically skids to a halt before him, hastily wiping his hands on his apron. Alfie quite likely interrupted him in the middle of taking stock, not that he particularly cares at the moment.

It doesn't help that Ollie looks honest to god surprised to see him, and now what the fuck is there to be surprised about seeing Alfie Solomons in his own goddamn bakery. Alfie strides into his office, only refraining from slamming the door shut because Ollie is following right on his heels, having no trouble keeping up with those stork legs he has. "Alfie, I've heard--"

"You have heard _nothing_ because there was nothing to hear, and if I hear another word all you'll be hearing is your ears ringing like the fucking bells of the Notre Dame. Do I make myself abundantly clear?" Alfie glares, watching with cold satisfaction as Ollie nods. "Now, I'm going to lock up here, right, then I'm going home, and if anyone disturbs me for the rest of the day, _anyone_ at all, hmm, it's your head," Alfie stabs at Ollie's chest with his index finger, then huffs out a grunt and gets to work.

He needs a goddamn break from bloody gypsies, Tommy fucking Shelby, and the truly inconvenient bone-deep desire to see that cold bastard come apart on Alfie's cock.

\---

The most ridiculous thing, Alfie thinks as he tosses his shirt to the side and finally gets ready for bed, is that Tommy Shelby is interesting. Sharp as a scalpel and twice as deadly, he is also nothing like the men Alfie has ever set his sights on, much too pretty, too clever by half, far too dangerous and way too _Birmingham_ , and where does that leave Alfie now? 

His anger simmers beneath his skin, not quite gone, and if he wanted to he could always just go and bloody do something about it. He could call Simon, get the whole bloody thing out of his system. If the lad is busy, Alfie knows all the establishments that cater to men of his tastes, at least on his side of London, and not least because they are good, steady customers who know the value of discretion.

But he is also too damn tired, the mattress is very comfortable, and the only thing he actually thinks about as he links his fingers behind his head and stares at the ceiling is that for all his family, Tommy Shelby has spent the evening of his grand victory drinking cheap booze in an abandoned warehouse with only Alfie Solomons for company.

\---

"The fuck is your problem, Tommy?" Esme shouts at him from her desk, and Pol just gives him one of those long hard looks before Tommy decides to deal with it some other time and pointedly closes the door behind him. It doesn't mean he cannot hear Esme through it, though. "The fuck is his problem? Walking around all prissy and hissing at everyone like a wildcat. Three fucking days of it!"

He has half a mind to go out there and tell her to fuck off, but he'd be just proving her point. So Tommy just stands there instead, wiping a hand across his mouth and wondering if they still have that bottle of Irish in the strongroom. Not that he is going there anytime soon, because he knows Polly, and she would only use the opportunity to corner him and demand answers about derby night that Tommy is taking with him to the grave.

No, Tommy just needs to pull himself out of it and perhaps finally get a few hours of decent sleep, where he is not dreaming about the tunnels, about the picks and the horses, where he isn't staring at the morning light filtering through the curtains imagining Alfie Solomons pushing him against a wall and kissing his mouth raw.

\---

Campbell's funeral is a quiet affair. The body is buried in the Epsom cemetery and Tommy attends, half-expecting to be contacted right there, eyeing the gathered warily, but the few people present quickly disperse in the light rain. 

It puts him on edge, the uncertainty, but any time he's given also grants him room to plan and counter. They think they have him, but they are only making the same mistake Campbell did, and by the time they realize how wrong they are, it will be way too damn late.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our canon divergence is really taking off now. Enjoy!

"Tommy!" It's been what, two months at most, and Alfie greets him like a long lost brother. His hair is even wilder than usual and there are ink stains on his fingers, and Tommy is almost painfully aware they haven't met since that night in the warehouse. He's sent John down to London to clean up the mess while Tommy was busy organizing the tracks, so it's just been messages and the occasional phone call.

"Alfie," Tommy returns evenly around the butt of his cigarette and proceeds to light it up. He studies the man through the first slow exhale of smoke, but Alfie only slides a glass of whiskey across the table, business as usual. "What do you have?"

"That last shipment? All spoken for, very fortunate indeed," Alfie clicks his tongue, looking almost concerned for a moment, which in turn almost pulls an eye roll out of Tommy. "I wonder, Tommy, does dear Arthur even know you've tossed in a king's ransom for him, hmm?"

Tommy just keeps smoking and holds his gaze, waits for him to get to whatever point he's aiming at. He's almost forgotten how it feels to be in the same room with Alfie, sharper, more alive, like listening to the far off rumble of thunder or sitting on the edge of a water through at Ypres.

"Or was that third meant to be his anyway? No coin out of your pocket, eh?" Alfie is doing that thing again, twisting his ring around his finger, and Tommy lifts his eyebrows just the slightest, just to let him know he is not playing along.

"You wanted to see me," he says and takes another long drag.

"I did, didn't I?" Alfie leans back in his chair, hands folded in his lap, his eyes assessing before he breaks into an actual grin, and damn but it shouldn't be such a kick in the head when he smiles like that, like a much younger man. "You like _holishkes_?"

\---

Alfie Solomons eats like a barbarian, cutting his food with a spoon and dabbing bread into the sauce with his hand, but with such ease and obvious enjoyment that Tommy almost regrets not asking for a plate himself. Between bites, he talks about rose gardens, Immanuel Kant, and the diamond business in Amsterdam.

Then he wipes his mouth with the corner of his apron instead of a napkin, and just like that they are down to business.

"I have, let us call it an interested party for a particular enterprise, right? A fine setup, really, except, loath to admit it, lies a bit outside my own particular expertise, you see. So now this is all in a spirit of occupational solidarity and cooperation, yeah?" Alfie scratches his chin, and Tommy's attention is caught by the way the bracelets fit around his wrist, for a moment imagining what that hand would look like-- and instantly buries that thought with a vengeance.

"I don't tell fortunes."

"Nah, don't worry about it, mate," Alfie waves at him, perfectly serious. "If I want to hear how blessed I am, right, I just make a donation at the synagogue. Same fucking thing."

"Fair enough," there is a slight smile tugging at the corner of Tommy's mouth, and Alfie notices, of course he does. "So what is it you want?"

"I've heard, and don't quote me on that yeah, that you gypsies are good at say, acquiring certain things," Alfie watches him closely, fingers playing with a letter opener. "Things that, between you and me, mate, might not strictly speaking belong to you. Hmm?"

"You want something stolen?" Tommy is caught off guard by that particular turn perhaps a bit more than he should, and he blinks. "What?" 

The look Alfie gives him is one of consideration, which is definitely just for show because if he didn't want Tommy in on this venture, he wouldn't be here in the first place. Trying to rush him doesn't work though, so Tommy just lights up another one like he doesn't give a toss either way.

Then promptly goes on trying not to choke when Alfie reaches into his pocket and pulls out some sort of precious stone the size of a matchbox.

\---

To his credit, Tommy Shelby looks as calm and collected as ever, but there is that shift again, not in his eyes, but somewhere deeper, and as he glances up for a moment all Alfie can think of is how much he wants to have Tommy fucking Shelby down between his legs looking at him exactly like that, with that particular kind of simple human greed.

"Jacob Goldstein verified this for you," Tommy says slowly. It's not quite a question.

So he knows about that visit then, Alfie thinks, irritation sliding back under his skin like a persistent itch. "What, you think I'm some bleeding amateur now, do you? I verified the stuff myself. It's all fucking genuine." 

"An expert on jewels, eh?" Tommy lifts his eyebrows and squeezes his lips together around his cigarette in that frankly annoying way that seems to pass for surprise with him.

"Hmm. For a man who values intelligence so much, I imagine that must really bother you."

"I collect intelligence on my enemies. Are you an enemy, Alfie?" Tommy gives him that vacant unblinking stare that somehow still feels like it's drilling holes into Alfie's skull.

He considers that for a moment, then leans back in his chair and lets his lips curl into a smile. "What kind of a world is this where your mate can ask you a fucking question like that, hmm?"

That breaks the tension and they settle back to something more comfortable. Tommy takes a sip of his whiskey, and Alfie might not drink, but watching Tommy do it is habit-forming in itself. So Alfie clears his throat instead and tells him about Leon Petrovich and his diamonds.

"Russian royalty, huh?" Tommy asks, but Alfie can tell the idea intrigues him.

"You see, Tommy, the thing about royalty is, they belch, fart and bleed just like everyone else."

"Now you sound like my sister," Tommy takes another sip, licks his lower lip, and Alfie follows the movement with his eyes despite himself.

"Communists. Bloody fools, the lot of them," Alfie huffs. "Good intentions, flawed ideas, stupid infighting, all the usual. Eh. Will turn into a bloody circus, now won't it, but points for the method, yeah, more people out there could use a fucking bullet to the head."

"What's in it for me?" Tommy leans back in the chair, crosses one leg over the other, and _now_ they are talking. 

Alfie clasps his hands and leans forward, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes. "Well see now, Tommy, I'm _really_ glad you asked."

\---

"I need to see it," Tommy concludes with a tone of finality, and Alfie makes a thoughtful hum. The map of the palace lies between them on the table, entry points marked in red. "This here," Tommy points out one of the cellars while sticking a new cigarette between his lips, "should be fine. If it's any of the other two sections, it might not work. And there is still the wall."

"Tommy, mate, have you not been listening to a word I said," Alfie gives him a long-suffering look. It's not quite a question. "Can't really just walk up and ask for a little peak, now can we?"

They've been hashing out the details of the robbery over the course of the past couple of days now. As a direct result, Alfie's office sports a few empty bottles and smells like it burned down twice. Not that Alfie _minds_ , exactly, because Tommy Shelby smoking is definitely a distraction he can live with.

"I'll ask around," he eventually concedes under Tommy's unwavering blue gaze, scratching at his beard with a frown. "No guarantees though."

"Good. I'll get a man inside, see what else we can find, get word to the Lees," Tommy is already off on one of his plotting tangents, and Alfie has to admit, bringing him in for this one was the right choice. "Any word from Amsterdam?"

"The buyer is solid," Alfie nods. If the _buyer_ is actually an amalgam of specific handpicked Jewish jewelers on account of Alfie not trusting anyone else with goods of this kind, then that is hardly Tommy's concern.

What _is_ cause for some concern is how much he gets under Alfie's skin, with his unreadable expression and scathing wit and his ridiculously long eyelashes. The way his ass looks in those well-pressed suits, and one would really have to be blind not to notice. The way Alfie's name rolls off his tongue, irreverent and thrilling like blaspheming in the temple. 

So Alfie calls Simon on a Sunday, like he sometimes does when his head is too full or his own hand isn't quite enough. He can still remember the first time when the lad showed up obviously expecting to be found dead in a ditch afterward, but he'd brought some dried cow skin for Cyril all the same, and Alfie knew just then it was all going to be fine.

They fuck in Alfie's bathtub, and it's just how he likes it best, slow and dirty and good. Except Simon's eyes are too dark, his shoulders are too thin, and his homeland's accent is harsh in his mouth. He talks about his little sister's upcoming wedding once they end up at Alfie's old kitchen table drinking tea with jam and playing a round of cards, and Alfie tips him extra as he sees him out, makes a mental note to get something nice for Rahel.

\---

For all his planning and sleepless nights, Tommy still isn't ready for the feeling to hit him as it does, the sinking terror behind his ribs and the suffocation of the corral like a garrote around his neck. What these bastards want of him might cost him everything, and there is nothing waiting at the end of it all but a bullet or a noose.

Fucking tanks. They expect him to deliver fucking _tanks_ , to fuel their goddamn war like it's just _business_ , and Tommy wants to grab them all, push their sanctimonious faces into the mud mixed with blood and piss and show them the injured and the dying before putting a bullet in each of their fucking heads, because he's seen it, _lived_ it and they had not, because he still wakes to his own cold dread and the taste of soil between his teeth.

His blood pounds in his temples like racing horses, like rain on the tarp over the explosive crates. They want to do it again, use him and discard him as they see fit, and he cannot speak, cannot find his own voice in the panic that bursts suddenly between his ribs, seizes up his lungs because he didn't choose this, he didn't.

Father Hughes leaves Charlie's yard with an ominous smile and the dry whisper of his black robe, and once he's gone Tommy presses the heels of his hands hard against his eyes and keeps breathing through his nose. The smell of tepid water and smoke and the stables churns inside his stomach as his heart races, and he barely has any recollection of how he got back to the mansion, much less where he is headed.

Except once he opens the door to what should be a fairly disused small salon (he still has no idea why you'd need such a thing in the first place, but if it'll grant him some time to pull himself out of it before seeing the rest of the family, he's more than happy to take it) and he finds himself face to face with Isaiah, his tie askew, his shirt pulled free from his pants and in the place of his pants there is _Michael_ , down on his knees and turning terrified eyes at him.

Tommy blinks, then turns on his heel and strides away at a brisk pace, a headache forming swiftly at his temples. Bloody hell, he knows he will have to deal with this eventually, but he's not even sure he can, not now, maybe not ever, but definitely not _now_ , because right now he just desperately needs a drink and it's not even ten yet.

\---

"Tommy," Ada looks at him over her shoulder and puts another cup on the tea tray. "Didn't know you were in London. Tea?" She smiles at him. It's a little tentative still, and he's missed it so much, all the more for everything that came between them.

Tommy takes a look around the apartment, doesn't take his coat off. 

"Tommy?" Ada sounds a little worried now.

"I know about Michael and Isaiah," Tommy says, and Ada freezes mid-step with the tray in her hands. "You knew," Tommy concludes flatly, reaching for a cigarette. "Who else?"

"John," Ada slants him a disapproving look. She arranges the tea set and starts pouring. "Finn might, not sure," she shrugs.

"Christ, Ada," Tommy lights up, shakes his head at the offered cup. "Pol? Jeremiah?"

"Of course not. Tell me you didn't do anything to those boys, Thomas," she demands.

"Don't be absurd," Tommy turns the cigarette between his fingers, lets his eyes fall closed for a moment. He's practically running on pure adrenaline and stubbornness at this point, and he's still got places to be tonight. "We'll have a family meeting. Do it right."

"Good. They deserve to be happy, Tommy," Ada tries, but it's a little too much too soon, leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, though Tommy isn't quite sure why. 

"Didn't we all?" He takes a long drag and holds her gaze, forces himself not to turn from the sorrow he can see there. "I need you to find out something for me."

\---

Tommy gulps down his whiskey and immediately pours another one. He had known entering the dangers of this game, but things are spiraling out of his control faster and faster, and there is so little time left to make everything right. Father Hughes has overplayed his hand this once, has thought to unbalance a clay kicker with the confines of a cell, thought to subdue one who grew up wrestling stray dogs with his own spoilt beast. 

Tommy takes another mouthful, savoring the burn as it goes down, the same way his throat burned with bile at the threat to his family. Next time, they will not bother with him again, so there will not be one. He cannot allow it.

"Will you tell him?" Pol seats herself at the table and pulls out a black cigarillo. 

"Tell who?" Tommy asks, running a hand over the back of his head, only half-focused on her. When she says nothing, he turns to her and asks again, sharper this time. "Who, Polly?" Then it clicks. "Alfie?"

"Oh, it's Alfie now, is it," she feigns surprise, but her eyes are sharp and sure.

"Pol--," Tommy starts, but she's not having any of it.

"You've been thick as thieves these past weeks, Thomas, you and _Alfie_ , and now you're telling me there's a Russian business you have not told us about all this time."

"Look, this could set us up for life, Polly," Tommy places his hands on the table, leaning down to hold her gaze. "No more illegal business. You'd not have to worry about Michael ever again, hmm?"

"You have no right. You have no fucking right," Polly glares back, but Tommy knows her too well, knows he's won. Knows she will not forgive it.

"I know. Alright?" He sighs, letting his head hang low before pushing himself up and away. "I'll call a family meeting."

"Very well." Pol keeps watching him with a condemning stare that has never failed to make Tommy's skin crawl. It's her one fault, seeing too much of him, the one thing Tommy will not have. He turns to leave but her voice reaches him before he could open the door. "Do you trust him? Alfie?"

"No," He answers without hesitation, without looking back.

"So tell him. See what happens," she says, and Tommy can tell that she has that look now, of wrought steel with a glimmer of cunning in her eyes, and he takes a deep breath before he reaches for the doorknob.

\---

It's almost nine in the evening by the time Alfie finishes with the last of the paperwork. He carefully places his glasses back into his pocket before standing and giving his back a good stretch. He just moves to fetch his coat when the door opens.

"Bit late to be doing the rounds, hmm, Tommy?" he asks pointedly, watching with wary interest.

"The priest knows about the vault." Tommy's voice comes out sharp and hissing like a blade being drawn. "Why does he know about the vault, Alfie?" Tommy steps close, cold blue eyes fixed on his, and Alfie feels the familiar rush of white rage in his temples.

"That how it is, Tommy? You've come all this way to make sure Alfie Solomons can keep his fucking mouth shut?" Alfie thunders, steps forward until they are almost nose to nose. "You think I'll stand for that, you silly boy? _Do you_?" His palm connects loudly with the wall next to Tommy's head for emphasis. He expects Tommy to shout, to fight back, but he just stands there as if struck by lightning, and his face shows absolutely nothing at all. 

Somehow, that just serves to rile him up more, his anger bubbling under his skin, and before he thinks about it his hand is already squeezing Tommy's throat, his thumb digging in hard below the corner of his jaw. It would be so easy, really, but Alfie still needs the bastard, so he tightens his grip just a fraction, just to show he can. 

The sound that comes out of Tommy's mouth is an honest to God _whimper_ , and all Alfie can do is blink, his anger turning into something darker and fiercer altogether. Suddenly he is acutely aware that Tommy's pupils are blown wide and that he still isn't moving, lips parted, pulse racing, and his cock fully hard against Alfie's palm as he cups it over the front of those tailored trousers.

"Fucking look at you," Alfie's mouth is running away from him, his own arousal rushing him like a flood, and he rubs his hand hard against Tommy's cock once, twice, three times-- "What a fucking mess you are, what a damn _sight_ \--" 

"Fuck," Tommy breathes out in a shuddering gasp, his eyelashes trembling, and then he is coming in his pants like a boy, hips twitching against Alfie's palm.

For one long feverish, breathless moment they just stare at each other.

"Well got to admit, mate, when you said you wanted me to back you into a corner I didn't think you meant that so literally. I mean, there's always hoping, yeah, but it's--"

"Clay kickers will be down by the site tomorrow," Tommy whispers, his voice flat but hoarse, and then just like that, he's gone.

\---

Tommy stares at the ceiling, pipe in hand and tendrils of smoke curling around him in the air, and the weightless drift of his mind reminds him of the high of his pleasure, of Alfie's hands on him, and he shifts against the sheets, too hot, too weary, his skin too tight. The bottle on the nightstand is almost half empty, and his panic is down to a dull pain in his guts, disconnected from the rest of him like he is taxidermy, the skin of a man molded over nothing but wires and stuffing.

His fingers tighten around the sapphire in his hand until the edges are pressing deep into his palm, but the pain never registers, and Tommy closes his eyes, listens for the picks in the darkness, and tastes fear on the back of his teeth.

The window is open and he imagines he can hear the Lees down by the stream, children laughing and horses whinnying, even though it's the middle of the night and he knows better. He wants to get on a fast horse, feel the wind on his face, and ride until there is land beneath. He needs to win this, he needs to see the sky, he needs to sleep, he needs a cigarette, he needs Alfie's voice in his ear, he just _needs_ , and it's rending him to pieces that fall through his fingers.

\---

"Mary, we'll have the family over for tea on Friday, please have everything ready," Tommy doesn't even pause to take his coat off.

"All of them, Mr. Shelby?" Mary tries valiantly to keep up with his much longer steps.

"Yes, all of them. I'm also expecting a man from London, but he will not be staying for tea."

"I will make sure there is some of that apricot jam Mrs. Thorne likes," Mary nods, and despite everything, Tommy finds it in himself to give her a grateful nod.

"Thank you, that'll be all."

"Will the young lady be staying for dinner, Mr. Shelby?" Mary's voice stops him cold. Behind her professional mask, she seems ill at ease.

"What young lady?" Tommy demands, and she shifts uncomfortably, locking her bony fingers over the stark white of her apron.

"There is a Miss Petrovna waiting for you in your office, Mr. Shelby," Mary informs him valiantly, and Tommy barely holds back from swearing in Romani through his teeth. 

\---

"There were no rules there. Deals were done," Tatiana says, like it's self-evident, like it doesn't bother her. "Brothers gave sisters, aunts gave uncles, fathers gave daughters and servants."

 _Fucking bastards, one and all, Tommy_ , Alfie's words come back to him, clear as bells. _Live in a fucking palace, hmm, feast on their fucking awful caviar, and sleep on a bed of diamonds. Moan about the goddamn revolution that ousted them. Thousands starved to death, hundreds lost to the fucking mines, mate. Means fuck all. I'd make them choke on the bloody things, but that would be a truly shameful waste of perfectly good diamonds, eh?_

It strikes him with sudden clarity _why_ Alfie told him this, and his own smile catches him off guard. He lowers his head, but it's too late.

"Are you laughing at me, Mr. Shelby?"

"No," he says with the straightest face he can manage. "I was just wondering, what happens when you finally have your tanks. You win, and everything just... goes back to the way it was," he makes a wide gesture with his cigarette.

She just shrugs and drapes herself over Tommy's couch like she owns it, pulling up the hem of her dress. She is beautiful and Tommy watches, curious to find his own lust before giving in to the desire to just curl up in bed and call it a day. 

"I think you should go home, and tell your aunt that like her, I see the value of family. Goodnight," he turns to leave, but Tatiana is fast, already up and by his side by the time he opens the door.

"I could make you a happy man, Mr. Shelby," she almost whispers, her accent thick and sensuous like warm fur, a glimmer in her dark eyes, and he takes a long look at her lovely, carefully painted face.

"Who says I am not?"

"I do," she searches his face with an arrogant tilt of her chin before her expression becomes cool and distant once again. "My aunt said to tell you that you may kill the priest," she says, matter-of-fact, puts on her gloves, delicate and efficient. "Goodnight, Mr. Shelby." 

\---

Once Tommy is in bed, sleep eludes him though, his mind too busy spinning lines and angles and deals, and he cannot help but think them through and then start all over again. He thought he knew how to deal with Alfie, saw down to the core of his violence, but now he feels on the razor's edge, like he's back in France, ankle-deep in mud, and any moment his next breath might not come.

It's not fear, not exactly. It's the knowledge of the inevitable hanging over your head.

Tommy flexes his fingers around the sapphire in his hand, thinks about Alfie's fingers around his neck, and he shouldn't, he really shouldn't, but the want of it sits curled tight and heavy in his guts since that night, and it perhaps should be awkward, to lie in his bed and fist his own cock to the memory of Alfie getting him off against a wall.

He could have stayed, a part of him knows all too well. Alfie could've taken his wrists, and Tommy would've _let_ him, pinned them against the wall while he got Tommy's tie off and out of the way, biting and sucking a ring of bruises down Tommy's throat before pushing him down to his knees and coming all over his face, _fucking look at you_ , and he comes with that thought and Alfie's voice in his ear.

\---

"Morning, Tommy," Jeremiah gives him a lop-sided smile, and Tommy nods, follows him to the kitchen table, and takes his usual seat. "You look like hell, man," Jeremiah places a cup before him, and Tommy just arches an eyebrow, because honestly, it's not like this is the worst they've seen each other. But Jeremiah just grins and seats himself across the table.

"I need to speak to you. About Isaiah."

"What trouble did that boy stir up now?" Jeremiah asks, his fondness mixed with exasperation and a hint of worry, and Tommy wishes he wouldn't have to do this, but needs must, even though this is Jeremiah, and Tommy would kill for him without a second thought. "He's alright?" Jeremiah obviously takes his silence the wrong way, suddenly worried.

"Yeah, fine."

"He get somebody killed?"

"What-- No," Tommy runs a hand across his hair, and Jeremiah looks even tenser.

"Just tell me straight," he says and Tommy almost chokes on his own spit.

Better get it out in the open and just be done with it. "He's seeing Michael."

"You know about that then? Not that it's surprising," Jeremiah adds with a wry twist of his lips and a roll of his eyes. "Young fools in love and all that, thinking themselves so very clever. Hope they didn't give you too much grief."

"You are taking it well," Tommy blinks slowly, rolling a cigarette between his fingers. Jeremiah doesn't like the smoke, so he's not lighting it up.

"Look. We've endured much, Tommy. We've all done things, terrible things. So I say, who are we to cast the first stone?"

"Word will get out." Word always gets out eventually, they both know that.

"A fool's mouth is his ruin, and his lips are the snare of his soul. For that is also written," Jeremiah gestures at the worn black Bible on the windowsill. "That's not what really troubles you, is it?"

Tommy breathes deeply through his nose, the familiar scent of the small kitchen soothing his frayed nerves. He's so tired, so tired of it all, the parts of him that all pull in different directions, and Jeremiah's eyes are just so warm, and he has seen Tommy at his worst, so how can he still look at him like that? 

"I've not wanted anyone like that. Not since," he whispers. 

"We can change what we do, but not what we want," Jeremiah folds his hands together in front of him, and his voice is also warm, but there is humor in it too. "And you, Tommy Shelby, has never let the world stand between you and what you want." 

"And what does God have to say about all that, hmm?" Tommy teases, makes a vague gesture towards the ceiling, and Jeremiah snorts out a laugh.

"Oh, I'm sure at this point he'll just add it to your tab."

\---

They have a scheduled meeting the next week, and anticipation sits low and simmering in Alfie's stomach right until the moment Tommy steps into his office, and Alfie can tell at once that whatever has happened, it must be _bad_. Tommy's suit is impeccable, his face perfectly empty, and he's about as amiable as a Petrograd winter.

Tommy seats himself as usual, lights up a cigarette, then gets right into business, and Alfie braces himself for the news. Except, there seems to be nothing. Boston will be taken over by Ada Shelby, the straying red sheep. Tommy's horse will be racing the entire season for the bookies to mind. The tunnelers took up with the gypsies and are making slow but steady progress and Alfie is invited to Birmingham for tea.

"Right. You know, they say you can pick out a good pup at Mattie's," Alfie interrupts mid-sentence, leaning back in his chair with a contemplative look and a little wave of his hand. "Don't let that fool you, yeah, man's a charlatan. Now Dernier, they don't like him because he's French, but he knows his dogs, that one."

Tommy just arches an eyebrow at him, and now he's really getting on Alfie's nerves.

"Figured you might need one, eh," he shrugs a little, "sitting there like someone killed yours."

Tommy regards him for a moment with that thousand yard stare, then stubs out the second cigarette he's barely lit. "Unless you have anything worth discussing, I believe we are done here."

Realization sinks in like lead, and Alfie's anticipation twists into something volatile and malicious inside him, makes his nerves thrum and his knuckles itch. Makes him want to get his hands on the bastard's neck and strangle him, never mind that it got them into this mess in the first place.

Like that's Alfie's fucking fault.

"Are we?" Alfie asks softly, and his men would know well enough to shit their pants and run at that tone, but Tommy just blinks, and it makes Alfie's fingers curl, makes his temples throb. "You know, Tommy, for someone so irrationally fearless you are sure fucking terrified of yourself."

"See you, Alfie."

Alfie watches him go, rubs a hand over his mouth, and thinks if Tommy's gonna be like that, then fine, fucking _fine_. Joshua has brought down the walls of Jericho with less.

\---

"Shall we… shall we clean it up?" Alfie can feel Tommy's hand on his shoulder, warning, anchoring, and he clenches his teeth, breathing slowly through his nose. Leon Petrovich stares back and doesn't flinch from his gaze, foolishly, arrogantly unaware of how close Alfie's rage is to his skin, how thin the line between his self-control and blind violence.

Tommy can tell. It's a fact that somehow makes it both worse and better. Not that it really matters now. Alfie has come too close now to concede the game. Even to himself.

Still, when the girl brings the egg, he cannot help the tremor in his hands, curls them into tight fists instead, until his knuckles are white with the strain. He's never dared to dream of this moment, but sometimes, when the winter wind bit just so, he wished, oh, how he _wished_. 

But nothing could have prepared him for how it would feel, all that stolen, cold royal opulence of gold and pearls and enamel that reminds him of rough diamonds in little velvet partitions, the smell of polishing acid and his father's steady, stained fingers. That brings back the memory of the jeweler's atelier, the scent of old wood paneling and the glittering brilliance of precious stones in all colors of the spectrum.

He rests his hands on the table, eager fingers framing the sight of it but not yet moving to touch. It doesn't seem real, in this fever dream of a night, under the unsteady light of a single bulb in a clammy cellar. But they are all watching him, and he finally takes it in hand, so light for something of such history.

For a moment it's like he can see a hairline scratch on the guilloché field where it fell from his father's hands at the end. Like he can hear the baying of the hounds, smell the blood on the snow. "Fucking hell," he slips and he doesn't care. 

\---

"Tommy," Michael walks into his office like it's a minefield and Tommy a one-man firing squad, but still squares his shoulders and looks him in the eye. That's exactly what made Tommy like him from the start, what makes him think of the boy as Polly's son instead of a stranger.

"Michael," Tommy considers him for a moment. "Take a seat."

Michael does, silent, waiting. And it's irrational to feel jealous of this boy, Tommy thinks, but cannot help it anyway. For the parents that love him and the life he could've had if Tommy hadn't walked into his little village seeking something that's been lost so long ago. For every day he never had to watch another man die and for the way he and Isaiah look at each other when they think no one can see.

"Do you want to apologize?" Tommy takes a sip of his whiskey, and Michael shakes his head.

"No."

"Will you keep seeing him?"

"I want to," Michael's voice is a little choked, but the determination in his eyes is real, like he's ready to fight Tommy for it if he has to, and for a moment it almost makes him smile.

"Very well," Tommy runs his fingers over the rim of his glass. "Family meeting after the Russian business is done, we will discuss it. You will talk to your mother until then."

Tommy will have his own chat with Pol, but Michael doesn't have to know that one.

"Alright now," Tommy stabs out his cigarette after a moment of heavy silence. "Get the car."

\---

"You take me for a fool, Alfie?" Tommy asks almost calmly, but there is a fell light in his eyes and a gun in his hand that he points straight at Alfie's head. "First, your little omission of the tip off from the Oddfellows, how you learned about the royals and their diamonds."

"Tommy, sweetie--" 

"Now _this_ ," Tommy downright seethes, and Alfie bites back a profound curse.

"Tommy, there were things in that treasury, right, God himself, he spoke to me and said, Alfie, you were meant to have these things," he tries, but Tommy only seems more incensed.

"Your fucking Fabergé is not worth half of what you gave for it!"

"Well, they wouldn't have bloody parted with it otherwise, hmm?" Alfie counters viciously, all patience gone, and the next thing he knows Tommy is tackling him to the ground, his fingers closing around Alfie's throat like a vice. But he is not using the gun, and Alfie allows himself to feel smug about that right until a shot does ring out and there is blood everywhere.

"Fucking hell, Tommy," Alfie shakes his head as he stands, voice is scratchy with the ache in his neck. His first thought is to be grateful he took David with him today instead of Hiram, with his three kids and little nieces, then reality comes crashing down.

What follows is not quite a fight, even though it is still _something_. Tommy stares at him, his face covered in blood, his eyes dazed and fever-bright as Alfie keeps going on, bloody _needs_ him to understand. And perhaps Tommy is right, in a silly, roundabout way. Perhaps they _have_ crossed a line, because this is definitely not business, but damned Alfie be if he knows what it actually _is_ then.

"Tommy! Tommy, fucking leave it, there is trouble with the tunnel," that brat Michael cuts in, tugging at his sleeve, and Tommy seems to snap out of whatever has taken hold of him. Just like that, everything seems to fall back to pattern, the leitmotif of shared interests once again reasserting itself.

"We should go," Tommy looks at Alfie, still somewhat rattled but determined.

Alfie can't quite help it, he swallows and looks away. "I would've compensated you," he finally offers with some contrition.

"I know," Tommy says, still so close Alfie can feel his breath on his face, can see the blood clinging to those impossible lashes.


	3. Chapter 3

"Where is he?" Tommy grabs the first man he sees, his eyes wide and a terrible determination on his face. The man stammers something, but then Jeremiah is there, taking over.

"Right at the wall, but he's in a bad way and stuck. The lads are trying to get him out, but it's too narrow down there," he explains in a rush.

"We'll dig him out if we have to," Tommy is already tearing at his buttons, getting out of his coat, and Alfie has to take a moment to compose his expression as the vest and the shirt follows. "How close?"

"First charge got through, but we'll need a second," Jeremiah is pulling out a sack from the pile of supplies strewn around and hands it over.

Tommy turns his head just enough to look at him, and Alfie nods. If the wall is breached, their attempt will be discovered the moment the grand duchess comes down before breakfast, and their time is running out fast. 

"You sure, Sergeant Major?" Jeremiah asks, and Alfie realizes it's the first time he's heard anyone address Tommy like that. For some reason it really suits him.

"It'll be fine," Tommy replies flatly, pulling on a pair of rough work pants. "Jeremiah, you're in charge. Get some water and blankets. Johnny, you check on the lookouts and tell the tribe to be ready. Cossacks show up, you run like hell and don't look back. Got it?" 

"Yeah, Tommy," Johnny nods, looking back at him once before disappearing into the night to rouse his men in rapid-fire Romani.

Tommy ties a cloth over his face to cover his nose and mouth, then with a last look over his shoulder descends down the ladder.

\---

The tunnel closes around him like a fist, and Tommy blinks his eyes once, twice, swallows hard against the clinging taste of soil and gunpowder, against the animal sound stuck in his larynx. He has to move fast, he thinks, his fingers flexing around the pick in his hand, but his thoughts are crumbling to dust and his ears are already straining to pick up the sound of counter tunneling that cannot be there, will not be there.

The light is dim and he can smell Letso before he sees him, covered in mud and the white of his eyes standing out in stark contrast against the darkness of his skin.

"Tom," he breathes in barely a whisper into the hand's width space between them, and part of Tommy wants to tell him they don't have to be so quiet down here, because this is not, it's _not_ \-- "Beams are unstable. Second charge might bring down the entire bloody thing."

As if to illustrate his point, the ceiling gives a little, raining down dirt and pebbles. Tommy feels sickness rise violently inside him, holds it inside with clenched teeth and measured breaths. They don't have time, and Kenneth is still down ahead. He nods and clasps a reassuring hand over Letso's shoulder and moves on.

It's not a long way but it feels like miles, feels like hell, feels like the sound of picks is coming closer, like there isn't enough air. Blood pounds in his ears and his palms sweat as he crawls, and then there's Freddie crouched down over a body in the low light, and Tommy closes his eyes with a shudder. When he opens them again, the image resolves into Gregory and a canvas bag, and the sense of loss that strikes Tommy is nothing like he had felt when Freddie died, just being in the tunnel makes his absence sharper, more bitter. It makes Tommy want to howl and claw and rage against the unfairness of it, and the pain that he's pushed so far down sits in his insides like a knife buried deep.

"Tommy? Thank God," Greg gives him a tight smile lined with worry. "They're just ahead."

He can hear them, and after he pushes past he can see them too, Paul and Mickey trying to get a hold on Kenneth, who is convulsing terribly, his eyes rolled back in his head. 

"Mickey, hey, Mickey!" Tommy calls out in a strained whisper, and his own voice feels too loud, feels hollow, tastes like rust.

"Oi, Tom," Mickey half-turns to look at him, and Tommy can see Kenneth's teeth are chattering. "He's bad, he's really bad, he needs out, eh?"

"How you want to do it?" Paul asks, old roles coming back easy and fitting like a second skin.

"Hold him!" Tommy orders then moves back to where he saw the canvas bag. There is a coil of rope, and he presses one end into Paul's hand. "Hands and feet, move him out fast as you can. Jeremiah's waiting, he'll do the rest."

"What about you, Tommy?" Paul asks, even as he goes ahead to secure Kenneth's hands, just enough so that he's easier to carry.

"Just go. Take the others," Tommy looks at him, and it's in Paul's eyes that he understands, that he wants to tell him not to do it, but in the end, he just nods.

\---

The clay is cool beneath his hand and Tommy wishes he could just rest his face against it because he's too hot, his heart pounding too fast, and there is a sick black feeling in the pit of his stomach that makes him want to run, to shout, to claw his way out. The bottom is wet and the trickle of water down the beams thunders in his ears like waterfalls.

He sets the charge slowly, willing his hands not to shake but they still do, and he takes long, uneven breaths, tries to think about the mansion and the horses, of the diamonds, of John's kids running around the house, of the taste of apricot jam and butter. Instead, he remembers lying awake on his cot, listening to cousin George singing under his breath, remembers when the shell hit the next day and George was torn apart by blast pressure, and his whole body shudders with the sound of the charges going off.

There is dust and debris everywhere and he coughs, dashing into the breach and emptying the vault into the sack he brought. His hands are still shaking, and it's taking too long, and if they find him here death will be a mercy. He grabs the next piece and then the next, the weight of the Fabergé egg oddly reassuring. He slings the bag over his shoulder and climbs back into the tunnel, and realizes only then that he's left the lantern in the vault.

There is no time. The beams creak and water drips, and he moves forward blindly, trying to follow the walls with his hands, trying to remember how long until the surface. The soil falling from the ceiling cakes over the sweat covering his face, and it feels like the darkness is endless, like he is breathing it in until it fills him up completely. There is a creak and then the first beam cracks somewhere, and Tommy slips, feet scrambling for purchase on the mud, cold and clinging to him thickly as he moves. 

\---

There's a commotion down by the entrance and Jeremiah is immediately there. "Letso?" he calls down into the tunnel in a low voice, peering into the opening. 

"They're coming," Letso appears like a lost soul rising up from hell, covered in mud and sweat, and Jeremiah pulls him up by the hand, pats him on the shoulder. They have the easy calm and familiarity of soldiers, at once comforting and deeply unsettling.

Alfie takes off his coat and rolls up his sleeves, a restless readiness under his skin like electricity. This is nothing like la-Bassée, but the experience is so deeply ingrained it might as well be instinct, and when the next tunneler shows up, Alfie is there, putting his back into helping him up. Together it doesn't take long to get them all, one of them bound and unconscious. They lay him down on the blankets Johnny brought, crowding around him.

"Will he be alright?" a lad in a peaky hat asks, and Alfie pushes him away, rolling his eyes.

"Quit your moaning, yeah, and for fuck's sake, get that away from him," Alfie waves away another holding a leather strap in his hand. "Seizure?" he asks no one in particular, and a stocky clay kicker with shoulders like a butcher confirms it.

"Fine one minute, gone the next," another adds.

"Hmm. On his side like that, keep him covered, right--" A tremor goes through the ground, barely noticeable, makes the lantern's light flicker. The tunnelers exchange bleak looks, and Alfie holds Jeremiah's gaze with his own, his jaw clenching and unclenching at the worry he sees there. "You, boy," he turns away with a snap of his fingers, "give me that."

\---

The beams creak, and Alfie swears there is a moment when the entire tunnel just fucking _lurches_ like a drunk man, and really the house is not that far away, so where the _hell_ is Tommy? The tension in the air is like a caged animal twisting around, and that does nothing to settle the rush of blood in his temples or the intermittent tremor in his hand.

This is nothing like la-Bassée, more like the last moments of silence at Verdun, and Alfie bites the inside of his mouth, letting the pain distract him from the memory and the need to do something, anything, and god damn that bastard, where is he?

There is a dull thud and a crash, then an ominous crack, and Tommy drags himself up the ladder, fucking _finally_ , lets the bag fall from his shoulder and rolls onto his side. He looks like he's been wrestling with pigs and there is a trickle of blood down one side of his face. His eyes are unseeing and wide with terror, his mouth is open in a silent scream and he's shaking like he's been pulled out from ice water, and by everything that's sacred does Alfie not want to think about that particular memory.

"Fucking hell," he mutters, then he's kneeling down and gathering Tommy up, pulling him against his chest, because nobody is fucking _moving_ , standing there gaping and petrified like they have never seen a man in a bad way, and just like that realization hits Alfie that they probably haven't seen _Tommy_ that way, because that would just fucking figure, wouldn't it? 

"Hey, hey Tommy. It's alright, yeah? You're alright, mate, you're alright." He's wet and his skin is cold to the touch and Alfie wraps one of the spare blankets around him as well as he can with one hand, and tries not to think about the story of Tommy digging himself out from a collapse, because he's had his doubts before, but not anymore, he doesn't. 

His hip is going to kill him tomorrow, not that he really cares.

"Did you know, hmm, that each time a man is born, a demon is born with his exact likeness in hell? That's fucking right. And before he's born, the heavens proclaim who he's destined to marry. It's all done up front, yeah, and that's a fact." He's not even sure what he's saying anymore, but Tommy's shakes are subsiding bit by bit, and Alfie figures as long as he keeps talking it doesn't much matter. "Hmm. But now demons, they are real sons of bitches, them lot, aren't they. So they'll try to get you to trip up and marry them instead, right? And that's how you end up with a shrew screaming at you day in and day out. Yeah. Fact. And--"

Tommy gags then, and Alfie barely has time to adjust his hold before Tommy empties the contents of his stomach into the dirt, and by the name of the Lord this is apparently Alfie's life now, holding Tommy's head like a bloody nurse, but all that comes out of his mouth is "Yeah, sure mate. Go on, go ahead, knowing you it was a terrible excuse for dinner anyway."

Tommy dry heaves once, twice, then he gulps and slumps back against him bonelessly, his lips shining with saliva and his eyes red-rimmed and open just a sliver, pale as death, and bloody hell, but how does he look so stupidly beautiful even like this, Alfie will never know.

"See, now Miryam, yeah, she'd have you sit down and--"

"Shut up," Tommy croaks and his voice is _terrible_ , and Alfie almost breathes a sigh of relief. Except, somebody does, and suddenly he is very aware of all the listless Blinders and the entire bloody gypsy caravan looking on with shaken expressions and Alfie just wants to personally punch the whole lot of them in the face.

"Yeah, right, quit fucking pissing about!" he yells, and that does it, the tension of the camp breaking into a flurry of activity, and Alfie resists the urge to just close his eyes and rest his forehead against Tommy's shoulder, because _fucking hell_.

\---

"No, you don't," Alfie declares with finality, and Tommy glares at him, or at least tries to. But even though he's washed his face and changed clothes, he still looks like death warmed over, and like hell is Alfie letting him drive to London on his lonesome. "Now kindly move the fuck over, yeah, I have better things to do than stand around here, don't I."

Tommy just looks at him for a long moment, then actually climbs into the other seat, and just as well, because it takes him about six minutes until he's out like a light. He looks even paler in the cold light of morning, dark shadows under his eyes and his lips bloodless.

It's a curious feeling, having him there like that, and only when they reach the outskirts of the city does it occur to Alfie that he has no idea where Tommy is headed in the first place. He glances over, but Tommy's breathing is even and he looks dead to the world. He doesn't even stir when Alfie stops the car and gets out, and for someone as guarded as Tommy, that's probably saying something.

"Alright mate, come on, just a few steps," Alfie mutters, sliding an arm around Tommy, who blinks and yawns, and Alfie probably shouldn't think that it's endearing, but it most definitely is.

"Where are we going?" Tommy's voice is thick and just the slightest bit slurred.

"Bed," Alfie offers concisely, and if Tommy wants to fight him over that, he's welcome to it, Alfie will gladly just leave him out here, no problem. But Tommy doesn't fight him, in fact, he says nothing, doesn't even really look like he can tell up from down, but at least still manages to put one foot before the other.

They are halfway up the stairs when Alfie realizes three things at once, namely that Tommy is still covered in mud, Alfie has no idea where Miryam keeps the spare linens, and nothing in the world could make him get a fire going at the moment. 

At least he supposes they both had much worse.

\---

Tommy blinks against the light once, twice. He must've slept then, his head still heavy with it, his limbs like lead and his body aching all over, and he rolls onto his back with a soft groan. His skin pulls and itches and there's a dull pain behind his eyes, and the night before comes back in a rush of adrenaline and cold panic. He breathes through it until his heartbeat slows down again, unclenches his fists, his jaw, and turns his head.

Even knowing what he is going to see doesn't make it feel real.

It's a good thing that the bed is so large, because Alfie sprawls across it, and Tommy feels strangely vulnerable with this knowledge, like he's not supposed to have it. He blinks, but the image stays and so does Tommy, just breathing, being, looking. There is a frown on Alfie's face and his lips are parted a little, and the more Tommy looks at him the more he wants to smooth out the deep line on his forehead, put his hands on him, make himself feel that it's real.

He sits up instead. His shoes are by the bed and his coat and jacket in a nearby chair, his gun laid on top, unloaded, with no bullets in sight. It makes him smile, the slightest curl of parched lips against the ache in his throat. He glances back, but Alfie is still asleep, so Tommy dresses and slips out of the room.

The house is nothing like he would've expected, clean and airy, full of little oddities like one would pick up during long travels, worn and comforting like a favorite book. There are geraniums in the kitchen window and a large dog lying on the threshold. It raises its head, looks at Tommy, and sniffs the air, then just goes back to dozing in the strip of sunlight across the floor.

His throat is killing him, so he opens a few cabinets until he finds a glass and gets some water from the tap, drinking deep, and it soothes some of the pain away. He leaves the glass on the counter and turns to leave when the door opens, and Tommy can only stare at the short elderly lady walking in, her white hair in a neat bun and a large triangular knitted scarf over her shoulders with a pattern of colorful flowers. 

She freezes in the doorway and Tommy readies himself for the screaming, but she laughs instead, low and jerky before she starts putting on the kettle, talking to him in a language he doesn't understand. Some of it are obviously questions, so he just offers her an apologetic look.

"Sorry," he says, and she gives him a toothy smile, pulling out plates of food and laying the table for breakfast, talking all the while. "I was just--"

"Oi, Miryam," Alfie appears in the doorway, wearing nothing but a pair of pants and a loose shirt, his hair sticking in every direction, and that really shouldn't make it so hard to swallow, but somehow it does, and Tommy decides to light up one instead. "Morning, yeah."

Miryam turns to Alfie with a torrent of words, elbowing him playfully in the side and Tommy almost chokes on his first lungful of smoke right then and there. It doesn't help that Alfie actually looks torn between angry and embarrassed, putting a large hand on her shoulder and giving her a short reply in whatever language they are speaking in.

It only makes her put her hands on her hips and launch into another tirade, though.

"She's Polish, I don't get half of what she's on about," Alfie explains in a stage whisper. It just makes Miryam frown and raise her voice. "Yes, yes, I'm sure the pantry can't wait, now please get the hell out," Alfie gently but relentlessly steers her towards the door, and Tommy has to hide the curl of his lips behind his cigarette, because this is Alfie Solomons, with all his well-earned reputation for rampant violence, tiptoeing around an old lady who could be his grandmother, though clearly isn't.

Once the door closes behind her Alfie comes back, rubbing a hand down his face, taking in the honestly insane amount of food on the table. Tommy has no idea how she even managed to get all of that out in such a short time, but then he realizes he never even had dinner when his stomach rumbles loudly. It seems to pull Alfie out of whatever thoughts he's having, and he makes an awkward gesture at the table.

"Right. Breakfast?" 

\---

"You should take a bath," Alfie isn't quite sure why he says it, except for that it's true and they have been sitting at the kitchen table for some time now, Alfie nursing his third cup of tea and Tommy smoking a cigarette. And perhaps that's why he thinks of it after all, because Tommy tipping his head back just so reminds Alfie of the planes and angles of his skin in the lantern light, the dip of his shoulders and the way those work pants hung low on his hips.

"I have to go," Tommy looks at him like he hasn't realized Alfie is there, and somehow that does it, the familiar irritation sliding back beneath Alfie's skin. "Thank you," Tommy clears his throat and stubs out his cigarette, "for breakfast."

"Yeah, cause the fucking world would stop spinning if you sat down a moment," Alfie snorts, finishing the rest of his tea. When he glances back again, Tommy is standing up, his face once again that perfect, expressionless mask and Alfie just cannot have it, will not have it. Not after everything, and especially not after this morning. He rises as well. "Sit," he says very evenly, his jaw clenching, a threat somewhere in there that he doesn't quite mean, and Tommy's neck moves in a long swallow. "I said fucking _sit_!" Alfie suddenly booms, his hand coming down on the table.

Slowly, Tommy lowers himself down onto the chair, like he's folding under some great weight upon his shoulders, except his pupils are wide and swallowing up the blue of his eyes, and those fitted trousers are leaving nothing to the imagination.

Alfie blinks once, twice as his own lust suffuses his flare of anger. This is all getting out of hand, and much too quickly at that, and this is probably a terrible idea, the _worst_ , actually. "That's just it, yeah? It's alright, it's fine," Alfie cards his fingers through that short-cropped hair and Tommy actually leans into it, looking a little dazed, and the tension of his shoulders goes out in a long exhale as Alfie fits his palm against the side of his neck.

Alfie pauses then, biting his lip even as he drags the pad of his thumb down the tendon, then lets it rest against the hollow of Tommy's throat. A part of him just wants to press him up against the wall, see how fast he can finish him off, how loud he can make him moan, but then that isn't really the point here, is it? 

So Alfie kisses him instead, cannot really help himself with how Tommy is looking at him, cheeks flushed and lips parted. He tastes like cigarettes and smells like dirt and gunpowder, and Alfie pulls back with a wry curl of his lips. "Here's what happens now, Tommy. We're going to get you all cleaned up, right, let you soak that damn cold out of your bones. And the bloody world is going to just fucking wait."

\---

"Shower first," Alfie holds up a finger once they are in the bathroom. "No offense, mate, but it would be a total fucking waste to put you in a tub in your state, yeah. Now let me," he says and Tommy actually _does_ , lets Alfie undo the buttons and peel off his clothes one by one, feeling oddly lost and charmed at the same time.

He could never ask for this, couldn't think to have it, but Alfie is giving it to him regardless, and Tommy cannot seem to say no to it, no matter how much he tells himself that he should.

Alfie's fingers work slowly, methodically, and he keeps going on about small, inconsequential things. Anticipation settles in Tommy's stomach like banked coals, and flares at every point of contact between their bodies. Feels a little like he's drunk, weightless and heavy at the same time, feels like he should be alarmed, feels like madness and hope and want.

The hot water is a shock and a blessing, and he turns his head up to it, lets it flow down his face, and almost jumps when Alfie starts to lather soap onto his back.

"The fuck are you-- _Fuck_!" Alfie's thumbs dig into his trapezius, and it's all Tommy can do not to moan out loud, because goddammit that hurts like a bitch, but it's also just so damn _good_.

"No fucking wonder you're so damn uptight, mate, it's like your back is cast of bloody iron," Alfie observes gleefully, obviously not caring a bit that he's getting his own clothes wet, and then goes on to wrench sounds from him Tommy will never ever admit to making. The catch is that it _works_ , draining away tension Tommy hasn't even realized was there.

Then Alfie's lips touch his neck and Tommy gasps, knees buckling, but Alfie is right there, sliding his arms around him and pulling him against his chest, and Tommy can feel how hard he is against his hip through his pants, and it's making his head spin. His hips buck and Alfie lets out a breathy chuckle at that, slides his fingertips up the underside of Tommy's cock, the teasing bastard.

Tommy opens his mouth to let him know what he thinks about that in no uncertain terms, but then Alfie's thumb circles the head, and all that comes out is a garbled moan. Tommy glances down, and now _that_ is a singularly bad idea, because actually seeing Alfie's hand moving over his cock is almost too much, and his hips snap up helplessly, trying to get more friction.

"Have you any idea how you look, Tommy, hmm?" Alfie drones into his ear, and it sounds just strained and rough enough to make him moan all over again. "Fucking hell, you're a sight, aren't you, so hard for it--"

"Bite me," Tommy pants desperately and has about half a second to feel good about the sound Alfie makes before he sinks his teeth into the side of Tommy's neck, sucking hard, and it doesn't so much push Tommy over the edge as it slams him face first into orgasm, and thank fuck for Alfie's arm around him, because he's not sure he could stay upright otherwise.

\---

"Is this really necessary?" Tommy arches an eyebrow, and Alfie pretends not to notice how those eyes are following his every move as he lowers himself into the bathtub.

"Seemed to like water well enough a moment ago, didn't you," Alfie cocks his head to the side, and pointedly gets comfortable. He doesn't much fancy walking around with a cane for a week, so Tommy will just have to deal.

"Never saw the point," Tommy says a little stiffly, and Alfie narrows his eyes, makes a thoughtful hum, because right now, Tommy Shelby is not very good at lying.

"Well mate, if the fucking Jerries got you, yeah, like they did me, you'd bloody well see the fucking point," he offers casually, but Tommy isn't asking, he just keeps standing there, and damn, but he's a sight, damp hair curling over his forehead and water clinging to his eyelashes, and Alfie just wants to get his hands on all that pale skin all over again. "Come now, come on," he pitches his voice low, and that finally gets Tommy moving. 

"Fuck," he hisses as he gets in the bath, but he slides into the empty space regardless. 

"Now there's a thought," Alfie offers quietly, contemplatively, hands folded together, eyes on the ceiling, like he doesn't really care either way.

The silence stretches, and Alfie briefly considers the possibility of being punched in the face.

"Why not," Tommy's voice is like sandpaper.

Alfie cranes his head to be able to see his face, because he must be hallucinating, right, there is no way Tommy actually _means_ \-- oh fuck. "Fucking hell, Tommy, you cannot just go around saying shit like that, mate," Alfie groans, but his voice is too uneven to his own ears.

"Why not," Tommy repeats, and he's already moving, sliding over and settling himself on top of Alfie's thighs, and this is it, Thomas Shelby is going to be the death of him one way or the other, there's no two ways about it.

"You know Tommy, I've wondered whether you're just stupid or your balls are made of brass. Then again, we know the answer to that one, don't we," Alfie wants to roll his eyes, but he just cannot seem to look away from the drop of water sliding down Tommy's cheekbone, and then they are kissing like it's a fistfight, biting, pulling, panting.

\---

"Fuck," Tommy gasps, hips instinctively bucking forward as Alfie presses a broad fingertip against his hole, their hard cocks sliding together with the motion in a sweep of dizzying pleasure. Alfie just keeps his finger there, rubbing slowly until Tommy pants into his mouth, then presses in a little, slow and careful and maddening. "Come on," Tommy tries, but his voice is breathy and it comes out more impatient than threatening.

Christ, it's been so long, he doesn't even remember, fumbling in one of Charlie's stalls with Jimmy Bell, who got married the next year and then became a short line on a long casualty list. It's uncomfortable at first, but somehow that just makes him want it more, push into it, and it pulls a heartfelt groan from Alfie.

"Stop, stop," he murmurs and Tommy ignores him, flexing his arms where he's braced against the lip of the tub for better leverage.

Except then Alfie presses a kiss to his temple and withdraws his hand. "Bed," he rasps, and Tommy rolls his eyes.

"Come on," he repeats, back arching, and Alfie huffs a breath against his shoulder.

"You're a _menace_. Now kindly move, will you, mate. It's just the other room, not the bloody Exodus, alright? Though strictly speaking, yeah--"

"Alfie," Tommy practically growls, feeling nonsensical and annoyed and still hopelessly, achingly turned on. His thighs tremble with it as he pushes himself up and gets out of the tub, drying off quickly. The water splashes and Tommy is resolved not to look out of sheer spite, but then does it anyway. And it's ridiculous, really, because for all of his strength Alfie is nowhere near the oiled perfection of the boys in the ring, and still Tommy's mouth dries up at the sight of him, the set of his shoulders, his broad chest, the line of his calves.

"Take it you approve," Alfie tilts his head with a glint in his eyes, and that's when Tommy realizes he's been staring, so he swallows and walks out without an answer. 

\---

It's just another one of those little things, knowing that Alfie Solomons keeps vaseline in the bottom drawer of the nightstand, that seems much too personal, never mind the fact that they've been rubbing off on each other absolutely naked not five minutes ago. But then Alfie finally slides back between his legs and Tommy tips back his head with a long sigh and lets him suck and bite bruises into the delicate skin of his throat.

Then Alfie grabs his hips with those wide hands and honest to god bodily flips him over, and it punches the breath and all conscious thought straight out of Tommy in a blinding rush of heat. His cheeks are burning against the cool linen, his back feels vulnerable and exposed, and he shudders with a gasp, fingers curling into the covers as Alfie trails a hand down the middle, fingertips mapping the vertebrae.

The first slick finger slides in, and damn Alfie for being right, bastard that he is, but it feels so much better than spit ever could, and Tommy spreads his knees wider with an impatient noise, every push crackling along his spine like a short direct to his brain. One finger becomes two, and it stretches and burns, perfect and glorious and Tommy buries his face into the bedding to smother the sounds falling from his mouth.

Alfie takes his time working him open, ignoring how Tommy arches his back or pushes back against him trying to speed him up, one warm, broad hand on his hip keeping him steady. 

"Have you any fucking idea how beautiful you look, Tommy? Bet you could come like this, yeah, just on my fingers," Alfie licks a long stripe across the scar on Tommy's shoulder, and he bucks like a colt, sinks his teeth into the nearest pillow against the whine threatening to slip out. Alfie just chuckles, the _bastard_ , before adding another finger, and that's it, Tommy's had it. 

"Bloody get on with it," Tommy pushes the words out through his teeth, the tendons in his neck stretched taut. " _Now_."

"Alright," Alfie concedes throatily, withdrawing his fingers. "If you insist."

Tommy instinctively clenches around nothing, but then Alfie finally starts pushing in, and the slow, unrelenting pressure is making his breath catch and his cock jump, and Tommy pushes back until they are flush against each other.

Alfie stills, stroking his ass and flanks in wide sweeps as Tommy breathes shallowly through his mouth. "Alright there, mate?" 

"Yeah. Yeah," Tommy breathes, his tongue heavy in his mouth like lead and his thighs tense. God, he just needs a moment, he's so _full_ , but then Alfie makes the smallest of thrusts and Tommy couldn't stop his own hips if he wanted to. For someone who already got off once this morning he's careening close to the edge already, building and building at the base of his spine with every stroke of Alfie's cock inside him. He feels like he's burning up, and yet those hands on his skin are still warmer, and when one fists around his cock Tommy is gone, flying into a thousand pieces washed away by the slow current of bliss pulsing across him, faintly aware of the praise Alfie whispers into his skin before his hips still with a groan.

For a while, they just lie there, getting their breathing in order. Tommy's first instinct is to pull away, but his limbs feel way too heavy and the duvet is rather comfortable, so he settles on rolling to his back instead.

"Well, that was," Alfie clears his throat, then reaches over to the nightstand and rummages around, lighting up a cigarette, and much to Tommy's surprise, he passes it on to him. "Better?" he asks, and Tommy pretends to think about it for about two seconds, staring at the ceiling before placing the cigarette between his lips.

"Yeah. Better."

\---

The jeweler asks for her signature and Tatiana shoots him in the head. Tommy pulls his own gun, but she's got hers trained on him with a little smile.

"I think I'll be taking that case as well," she announces pleasantly, like they are just out for a stroll. She steps closer, glancing down at the briefcase on the ground, but Tommy shakes his head at her, raising the barrel of his gun a little to make his point.

"We had a deal."

"I know your weakness, Tommy. It's freedom. Madness. Killing." She looks deep into his eyes and still doesn't see him at all. "I am the first one who understands you. So I know, you are not going to pull that trigger."

"No," Tommy waits for a long moment, then puts away his gun and pulls out a cigarette instead.

"See? I knew it," she pats his shoulder. Her smile is dazzlingly condescending.

"You don't understand it, but how could you, when you don't know the first thing about being little?" Tommy cocks his head and places the cigarette between his lips.

"And what would that be? Poor? Uneducated?" she asks, haughty, gun still trained on him. 

"Invisible," Tommy exhales smoke into the morning air. "Isn't that right, Alfie?"

"God's honest truth, mate," Alfie looks on with an ugly glint in his eyes as Tatiana's eyes go wide, as she turns and realizes he already has a gun trained on her.

"You will not kill me," she lifts her chin.

"You people, alright, you hunted my mum. With dogs. Through the snow," Alfie enunciates slowly, and Tommy has long suspected there was something personal there, but still, he has to close his eyes against the sudden stab of fury he feels.

Tatiana swallows, but she still won't lower the gun, or step away from the money. She still thinks she can have it her way, and it's setting Tommy's teeth on edge. "I have powerful friends. You know this, Mr. Shelby."

"Ah, is that right, hmm? Got to say, that really changes things now, doesn't it," Alfie makes a small circular gesture with the gun in his hand, then points it straight at her forehead, sure and merciless like judgment day, and Tommy has not seen anything so magnificent since the horse auction in London. "Like Moses said to the Pharaoh, yeah, _idi na hui, suka,_ " Alfie pins her with his eyes and pulls the trigger.

\---

"Can't fucking believe you thought that bitch might let you walk, mate" Alfie grumbles, making sure the Fabergé is in the bag. A corner of the canvas is stained a little red with blood, but Tatiana was right, it isn't like the diamonds haven't seen worse. 

"If I thought that, I wouldn't have invited you here," Tommy points out with a sharp gesture. Alfie turns, surveys the dead bodies and the bleak countryside.

"Right. Top of your list, eh? Tell me Tommy, where is darling Arthur? Or your little errand boys that so enjoy certain London clubs? Hmm?" Tommy makes a little hum at that and gives him an odd look. "What?"

"A lot of money in this briefcase," Tommy keeps looking at him through his eyelashes and Alfie squints back at him. "We both got double. But one of us could have it all."

"Hmm. You see, Tommy," Alfie draws two fingers down his beard, pretending to contemplate it. Then he raises the gun. "I think we ought to discuss my fee, yeah, mate? Let's see. One assassination, and I'd love to give you a discount on this one, right, but royalty, it's extra. So let's call it a standard five hundred. Plus expenses, naturally. That's what, twelve hundred between friends, yeah? And that little matter of saving your life, which, say, brings us to a nice round five thousand."

"Three thousand eight hundred pounds for my head. I'm flattered." Tommy stares at him, perfectly collected, doesn't move, doesn't say anything else.

Alfie blinks twice rapidly as realization hits, because he's seen this exact look on Tommy's face before, sitting right across his desk and staring down the barrel of a gun, and bloody hell, but hindsight is an absolute bitch. "You got to be fucking kidding me. Really?"

Tommy just keeps looking at him that same way, then slowly licks his lower lip, and it shouldn't be such a goddamn turn on, it really _shouldn't_. Not that Alfie is harboring any illusions at this point. He is a creature of fury and greed, and Tommy Shelby draws out that part of him that will not be satisfied by mere diamonds.

He saunters up to Tommy slowly, eyes narrowed, and then keeps going until he backs him against the car. Alfie drags the gun down the line of that absurd cheekbone and Tommy's eyelashes flutter, a hitch in his breathing. Alfie leans in close, and Tommy's lips part, but instead of a kiss Alfie reaches into Tommy's coat, pulls out and pockets his gun.

"Now, this, you silly thing, this _will_ cost you."

\---

Alfie, the utter bastard, makes him drive while he sits in the backseat with the briefcase. It makes the back of Tommy's neck crawl, makes his fingers twitch against the wheel. It's unsettling and heady-sweet, like whiskey mixed with honey, and he pretends not to notice the soft clicks of metal when Alfie empties the bullets from their guns.

The countryside passes them by in streaks of drab browns, pale gold, and silvery green. It's probably all very picturesque, but Tommy's attention is narrowed to the strip of road ahead and the heavy presence of Alfie in his blind spot. He's quite sure the irony of that one isn't lost on either of them. 

It seems to go on forever, even though the sun's angle barely changes, feels like they are suspended in time like a bug in amber. He doesn't know where they are or where they are headed, only knows they are not going back to London.

"Left," Alfie says suddenly, and Tommy almost flinches. Alfie's unusual silence chafes at him, and he wonders if that's on purpose too. "Stop here."

Tommy parks the car, gets out, and looks around for the first time. There is a house, worn-white and inviting, hemmed in by a pretty green garden full of evergreens and roses, miles of empty road, and the washed-out blue sky. The air is crisp like apples and smells like sea salt.

"Where are we?" Tommy asks, looks at Alfie over the top of the car when there is no answer. He seems lost in thought, and when he looks at Tommy his eyes are menacing, and it sparks through him like electricity. "Alfie?"

"Tsk. Now that is really none of your concern, is it?" Alfie honest to god _grins_ , raising an eyebrow for added emphasis, his gun pointed at Tommy's forehead. "Now be a good lad and grab that case, hmm?"

\---

Alfie takes a moment to rummage through the bag of jewelry before he settles on something. It glitters in the light like stars on a string, and Tommy cannot seem to tear his eyes away from it, a diamond and pearl choker, three fingers wide with a delicate pattern of vines and leaves.

"Tommy, mate, listen to me a moment like I'm Moses just down from the fucking mountain, yeah?" Alfie's voice is collected but rough, and Tommy's gaze is drawn to the way the fingers of his other hand slide gently over the stones. "Oi, Tommy!"

"Fuck off," Tommy snaps at him, but if anything, that seems to satisfy Alfie.

"Long as this piece stays on, understood?"

Tommy nods, but Alfie still isn't letting up, it seems.

"You sure?"

"Bloody hell," Tommy wants to roll his eyes, but he also kind of wants to smile, and in the end settles for irritation. "Yes, alright?"

"My boy," Alfie shakes his head and picks up his gun again only to push it against Tommy's temple and slowly drag it down the side of his face and neck. "What was that now?" 

Tommy swallows hard, and the metal digs deeper into his skin. Alfie's eyes are dark and utterly without mercy. "Yes, I'm sure," he corrects breathlessly.

"Good. Go ahead then. Put it on," Alfie rasps, and Tommy has no _choice_ , really, has he, the gun resting heavily against his collarbone, and his eyes flutter momentarily shut before he reaches for the choker. 

His fingers shake a little and his neck moves in a convulsive swallow at the first touch of diamonds against his throat. It's a tight fit, pressing mercilessly into his skin, made for someone more slender, a woman's neck, and the thought spreads an unexpected flash of arousal through his body. 

"That's better," Alfie declares a little absently. "Such a lovely neck, Tommy, like you were made for it, yeah" he slides a palm over the choker, pressing just a little, just _enough_. His thumb tucks beneath Tommy's jaw and he leans closer, breath hot in his ear and the beard scratching against the side of his face. "Three hundred and ninety-three marquise cut diamonds, five cushions, and forty-seven pearls. The pride of an empress. A death sentence. Worth more than your fancy house with all your fancy suits. Hmm. Now it's mine. Strip."

His hand is gone so suddenly Tommy sways on his feet a little, but he shrugs out of his coat with haste, heart pounding. Loses the vest, snaps off the suspenders, fumbles with the shirt's buttons, keeps looking at Alfie all the while. Soon enough, all his clothes are lying in a haphazard mess on the floor. The carpet beneath his feet is warm and softer than it looks.

Alfie walks a slow semi-circle around him, traces his tattoos with the barrel, lets it rest against the small of his back. "Down," he commands, and Tommy's knees fairly buckle under the weight of it. "Get the _fuck_ down," Alfie repeats with more force, and Tommy wants to, god, does he _want_ , with a dull ache in his belly. He doesn't. He _can't_ , but then Alfie reaches up, threads a hand in his hair and _pulls_ , and Tommy folds with a gasp like a house of cards.

\---

Alfie traces the choker with his fingertips, presses his nails in a little where it bites into Tommy's skin. He expected _something_ , but this is almost too much, too deep. He'd known Tommy would agree, but not the eagerness of it, the wrecked look in his eyes that reminds him of battlefields, and God above, Alfie just wants to ravage him senseless. He traces his thumb down the line of his jaw, over his lower lip, then presses into his mouth, just a little, and Tommy licks along it.

"My, my," he breathes, and damn, he might be ruining it all, but can't help himself. "Like that, don't you, Tommy? Have your men like that? Down on your knees?" Tommy shakes his head, and Alfie feels a stab of almost vicious satisfaction. Pulls his hand free just so he can tangle it in Tommy's hair and pull his head back, make that neck arch, because _fuck_. "That so? Hmm?"

"Never," Tommy chokes out in a whisper, and Alfie lets go with a huff.

"It's never too late, right, it's what they say," Alfie makes short work of his pants, pulls out his cock, and gives himself a nice long stroke, then slowly presses into Tommy's mouth, pleasure sizzling along his spine like firecrackers. Tommy's pupils are blown wide and he moans, then gags a little as Alfie pushes deeper, and he pulls out a bit before pressing back in. "That's right, Tommy, just like that. You're doing good, so good, yeah? Oh, fuck." Alfie feels like choking himself when Tommy drags his tongue along the underside, and damn, but he's quick to brace his hands on Alfie's thighs and try for a rhythm.

Alfie would love to leave it up to him, but then it'd all be over too soon, so he grabs Tommy by the nape with his left and guides him, slowing him down. "Have you any idea how fucking beautiful it looks, Tommy, your lips stretched around my cock, hmm, and you're taking it so prettily, aren't you?" He murmurs, the fingers of his right hand skimming over Tommy's cheek and the bastard moans around him, makes him gasp. "Next time I'll just kneel over you and make you take it until that clever mouth of yours is all bruised, right, and then send you home just like that, so everyone will know what you've been doing with it." 

Tommy honest to god _keens_ , tries to withdraw his left hand, but Alfie grabs it and presses it back against his thigh. 

"Oh, you'd enjoy that, wouldn't you?" Alfie hisses between his teeth. "Close your eyes."

Tommy looks up at him questioningly, and that nearly does it, but then he does close his eyes and Alfie pulls him off, a quick stroke, two, and with a deep, shuddering groan he comes over Tommy's face, and if Alfie could choose, he'd die with this image before him, Tommy all flushed, his lips red, spit down his chin and sperm cooling on his cheek.

\---

"Go ahead now, it's alright," Alfie strokes errant strands of Tommy's hair out of his face, and he leans into it before the meaning fully registers, but then he can finally thrust into his own fist with a moan. The fingers in his hair tighten. "Slow, Tommy, slow, hmm?"

Tommy wants to curse at him, but only bites his lip and reigns in his movements instead. He feels lightheaded, almost feverish, his jaw aching and his need coiled tight inside him like a spring ready to snap.

Alfie takes his other hand and kisses his wrist, then he bites down hard, the pain cutting through him in a rush, and Tommy's back arches as he comes, his vision whited out by sudden pleasure. He strokes himself through it, clumsy and gasping for breath, then slumps forward, but Alfie's hands are there to catch him.

"There's a lad," Alfie urges him up and transfers him to the settee instead, and just as well, because Tommy feels absolutely boneless and floating. He's faintly aware of the protest of his knees and his neck feels bruised, but everything is too perfect for him to care. "Let me get that," Alfie's voice seems to come from far away, his fingers deftly unclasping the choker around Tommy's neck, and he draws in a deep breath that makes him feel dizzy.

Alfie's fingers stay stroking his nape even as he wipes Tommy's face with a handkerchief, hands him a glass of water, and where did he even get that, because Tommy doesn't seem to recall seeing him move. Normally he'd ask for a whiskey, but right now even that seems like too much trouble and the water is cool and sweet in his mouth. 

"Tommy? Hey, Tommy?"

"Hmm?"

"There you are. You alright, mate?" He actually sounds a little worried, Tommy concludes with a bit of confusion, so he does force a nod against Alfie's shoulder and hopes that'll do. "Right. You stay here, I'll just--"

"Don't you fucking dare move," Tommy tries for authoritative and can hardly recognize his own voice. But Alfie's fingers drawing idle patterns on his neck is just _nice_ , and so is the way their bodies fit together just sitting like that, and everything else can wait a little longer.

"Tommy, my boy, you drive a hard bargain. Me, I personally reckon that we ought to revisit our earlier discussion at a later time."

"Next time I'm in London, I'll let you know," Tommy somehow manages, and he could swear there is a smile on Alfie's face, but keeping his eyes open is just too much effort at this point.

\---

Tommy wakes up on the very same couch wrapped in a soft blanket. There's still light, but the sun hangs low, casting long shadows inside. He must've slept at least three or four hours, and it makes an entire world of difference. He closes his eyes for a moment, just enjoying the quiet, the ticking of the clock on the mantel, the sunlit, lived-in peace of the house. His knees ache and his throat is dry, but even that has its own comfort.

The smell of coffee and something frying draws him to the kitchen eventually, and Alfie shoots him a glance over his shoulder, then just turns back to the stove, and Tommy realizes he's humming a curious tune under his breath. Tommy pours himself a cup of coffee and taps his pack against the table to shake out a cigarette. 

"You ever had blini?" Alfie flips a piece in the pan, then he launches into a monologue on the difference between pancakes and blini, and breaks off into a tirade on proper sour cream and cottage cheese somewhere in the middle.

Tommy closes his lips around the cigarette and keeps watching. It's a strange experience to be here like this, so far removed from everything else, London, Birmingham, friends and family, business and work. For all that he came here at gunpoint, or at least the pretense of it, there is a sense of freedom in this that he's not felt for a long time, and Tommy almost wishes he could just sip his coffee, watch Alfie move around with his sure, odd grace, and forget about the rest.

"You got a line?" he asks instead.

"Study," Alfie doesn't even miss a beat. "Second door to the right."

The study is plain, obviously doesn't see much use, but the phone is rather new. Tommy spends about half an hour relaying orders and fending off concerned questions. When he's done, he keeps sitting there until he finishes his current smoke. 

By the time he emerges, Alfie has finished and set the table, if providing two plates could be called that. His face has a bit of color from the heat of the stove and his shirt isn't buttoned all the way, exposing the line of his collarbones. "All in good order?" Alfie asks jovially, but his eyes are sharp.

"Yes," Tommy pours another coffee, but before he could drink Alfie steps close and tips his chin up with a finger. The kiss is light, just a press of lips and the barest hint of teeth, gone as abruptly as it started, and Tommy almost chases after it. 

"You know, Tommy," Alfie cocks his hip against the kitchen cabinet and crosses his arms. "You're a bit like me, eh? You're from an oppressed people. Hmm. You. Are also a heathen whose _babushka_ never made him blini, so here I was thinking I'd do you a favor, right, rid you of that pitiful existence. But it'd be immensely helpful on your part if you'd stop looking at me like you're craving me to bend you over this table and fuck you right here."

Tommy blinks and swallows thickly. It doesn't seem to do the trick, and he needs to clear his throat before speaking. "Very generous of you, Alfie."

"Yeah. Generous, that's me," Alfie nods sagely, twirling one of his rings, and Tommy takes a step to close the gap between them.

"I've also endured some thirty years without it, so if it's all the same to you, I can last another thirty minutes," he offers dryly, and nearly shivers at the dangerous light in Alfie's eyes, the way he drags his thumb lightly up Tommy's windpipe and over his lips.

"Is that so? Hmm? Now I believe we'll just have to see if you can, don't we?" 

\---

"I've heard Father Hughes was found. Well, what was left of his body anyway," Churchill studies him across the heavy oak desk. "A terrible accident."

"It is. Terrible." Tommy stares back, unblinking.

"I'm sure you realize, Mr. Shelby, the difficult position this places us in."

"You are aware, Sir, that I served. You are also no doubt aware of the business ties I cultivate, even in London."

"Are you threatening me, Mr. Shelby?" Churchill looks almost intrigued by the prospect, if entirely unamused.

"I am telling you that I have great respect for the work you are doing, and I was hoping we could come to an understanding." Tommy takes a small, ornate box from his pocket and slides it across the table.

Churchill opens it without hesitation, with the air of a man who has seen it all and will not be surprised by anything anymore. He takes one look at the sapphire before snapping the lid shut again. "What is it exactly you expect of me, Mr. Shelby?"

"Nothing. I expect _exactly_ nothing," Tommy offers steadily, heavy with implication, holding that steel gaze with his own.

\---

"So, how did it go?" Alfie asks casually as Tommy steps out of the War Office.

"We shook on it," Tommy says, and cannot really help the triumphant smile tugging at his lips as he takes a deep breath of the cold London air and with a resolute gesture puts his cap back on. No more chains, no more tethers. Freedom and relief run in his veins like champagne, and now there is an idea. 

"Good, good," Alfie nods. "Off to Birmingham, then?"

"Got a family meeting," Tommy lights up a cigarette, squinting against the pale sunshine. "You coming with? I have this bottle of champagne stashed in the Garrison. Been saving it for a special occasion."

It's most satisfying to see Alfie's eyebrows rise on his forehead. "Go back? To that hellhole smelling of pigs that God has forsaken somewhere around the first flood? Me?"

"I'm told the guest rooms at the mansion are excellent," Tommy deadpans, blowing out the last of the smoke through his nose.

"Hmm," Alfie's jaw moves silently for a moment, considering, then he just throws up his hands in a long-suffering gesture. "Right. Fine. It's not like I have business to conduct or places to be, long as I can lie around in a right proper bed in some pastoral country cottage. However have I lived without that until now, we will never know."

It's not even really funny, but Tommy still laughs, short and bright, because John and Esme can have their chickens, Arthur and Linda can pioneer the Shelby Institute, and Michael can put the Grey family ring on the finger of Isaiah Jesus, and none of them will have cause to look back or regret believing in him. 

On the long road to hell, today is a good one to be alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idi na hui, suka - fuck you, bitch
> 
>  ~~my Russian is close to nonexistent, so please feel free to correct my pathetic attempt (Alfie insisted)~~ now with actual proper russian translation with huge thanks to WL!


End file.
